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Updated: Oct 29, 2025

Fabrication and Design of Wood-Based High-Performance Composites
Published on: November 9, 2019
Sandwich-Structured Photothermal Wood for Durable Moisture Harvesting and Pumping
Yu-Tang Li1, Honglei Chen1, Ran Deng1
1School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China.
Abstract:
Moisture capture coupled with photothermal regeneration provides an alternative and sustainable way to acquire fresh water. Composite moisture absorbents based on hygroscopic salts are environmentally friendly, economically feasible, and of high efficiency but suffer from the unavoidable desiccant leakage during absorption and evaporation-induced salt accumulation on material surfaces during desorption. In this study, we develop a superhydrophobic-hydrophilic-hydrophobic photothermal wood embedded with CaCl2 to promote the durability of the absorbents. The sandwich structure serves as a liquid/vapor gate allowing vapor transport but forbidding liquid permeation, enabling the condensation and evaporation within the wood. Beyond moisture harvesting, the sandwich-structured photothermal wood exhibits potential in indoor dehumidification by pumping the moisture through an absorption-desorption cycle.
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