3D-Printed Petal Structure Photothermal Evaporator Based on Thiol–Ene Click Chemistry for Efficient Wind-Solar Coupling Water Evaporation

Faced with the increasingly severe global shortage of freshwater resources, solar-driven interface evaporation technology has become an important water treatment solution due to its green and low-carbon characteristics. However, traditional two-dimensional evaporators have low energy utilization efficiency, while existing three-dimensional evaporators are limited in their promotion and application due to complex preparation processes. This study innovatively combines digital light processing (DLP)-3D printing technology with thiol–ene click chemistry reaction to construct a unique petal-shaped photothermal evaporator. The evaporator uses tetra(3-mercaptopropionyl) pentaerythritol ester (PETMP) and triethylene glycol divinyl ether (TGDVE) as substrates and utilizes the ene groups in TGDVE to undergo a thiol–ene click chemical reaction with the thiol group in PETMP under ultraviolet light irradiation, forming a cross-linked porous polymer network structure. Furthermore, this evaporator can make full use of the wind-solar coupling strategy by introducing convection and utilizing wind power to promote the removal of water vapor at the evaporation interface, thus improving the evaporation rate significantly. That is, under the condition of solar radiation intensity, with an optimal angle of 30° of petal structure, the evaporation rate of the CPT evaporator is as high as 1.92 kg m–2 h–1, and the energy conversion efficiency is 91.2%. By introducing external convection, when dealing with real seawater at one solar intensity, the evaporation rate increases to 2.82 kg m–2 h–1 when the convection velocity reaches 4 m s–1, and the salt production rate increases to 88.83 mg m–2 h–1. In sum, this petal-shaped CPT photothermal evaporator based on DLP-3D printing and thio-ene click chemistry preparation, combined with a wind-solar coupling strategy, provides an efficient and scalable low-carbon freshwater preparation solution.