Laser-treated wood for high-efficiency solar thermal steam generation

Solar-driven water vaporization is considered one of the most sustainable ways to solve water scarcity. The design of highly efficient solar absorber systems has received extensive attention. Here, we report a novel light absorption material for water evaporation using laser-treated wood. The obtained laser-treated wood possesses interconnected 3D porous networks formed by the random construction of carbon arrays and a hydrophilic surface due to the oxygen implantation by laser treatment. When under 1 sun solar-simulated light irradiation (1 kW m⁻²), the surface temperatures of dry and water-saturated wood reach 59.5 °C and 40.4 °C, respectively, indicating good heat localization. As a result, the laser-treated wood under 1 sun illumination shows high solar to vapor efficiencies of 93.1% and 92.6% for pure water and seawater, respectively, which are higher than that of most wood-based reported photo-thermal conversion materials. Therefore, the fabricated laser-treated wood may pave the way for harvesting solar energy to produce clean water at low cost.