Solar-Inspired Water Purification Based on Emerging 2D Materials: Status and Challenges

摘要

Water shortage and the energy crisis are two major global challenges in thiscentury. The solution for water crisis should be based on a sustainable energysource. Solar-inspired water purification is an efficient and green technology fortackling the water challenge using abundant and clean solar energy throughphotothermal evaporation-induced water production, photoinduced antimicrobialtreatment, and photocatalytic degradation of organic contaminants.2D nanomaterials draw significant attention for their use these three waterpurificationmethods because of their large surface area, broadband and strongabsorption in the solar spectral range, and efficient photothermal and photocatalytictransformation. Herein, the recent development of 2D nanomaterialsapplied in photothermal evaporation, photoinduced antimicrobial treatment,and photocatalytic capability is comprehensively overviewed. Various strategiesin enhancing the light-absorption and light-conversion efficiency for different2D nanomaterials are presented. The challenges and perspectives of these 2Dnanomaterials are further discussed for practical water purification. This Reviewhighlights these green energy–driven water-purification methods based onemerging 2D materials.