Upcycling of polyolefin-based textiles into sulfonated sorbents for solar-driven atmospheric water harvesting

Commodity polyolefins are produced on a grand scale, and a substantial and growing fraction enters the waste stream as structured materials, particularly textile waste. These materials present a compelling opportunity by virtue of their fibrillar morphology, yet most conventional recycling methods, including both chemical and mechanical approaches, overlook this structural advantage. Herein, we report a scalable upcycling strategy to directly convert polypropylene-based textiles into functional sorbents through a sulfonation-based reaction, resilient to various additives and contaminants. This one-step, solid-state reaction imparts hydrophilic and hygroscopic character, while retaining the initial woven architecture of fabrics. Sulfonated textiles were then implemented as sorbents for atmospheric water harvesting (AWH), exhibiting strong water sorption performance across a wide range of relative humidities (RHs) with high cycle stability. Due to their intrinsic photothermal characteristics, solar-driven water desorption was enabled without additional solar absorbers or energy inputs. Graphical abstract