Biological or organic contaminants widely exist in most water sources. During the practical solar-driven evaporation process for fresh generation, photothermal films tend to be contaminated by alga or other organics, resulting in unavoidable performance degradation.

Pyrolysis for biological/organic contaminants decomposition is an ideal method for film regeneration for the thermostable materials. However, the process suffers high-energy consumption due to high decomposition temperature of contaminants.  

In recent years, Prof. JIANG Heqing’s group from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has done a lot of work on the development of new perovskite oxides and their catalytic-membrane separation performance.  

In their current study, the researchers proposed a cobalt-containing perovskite oxide, La_0.7Sr_0.3CoO₃ (LSCO) porous film for solar-driven evaporation with both high photothermal performance and high activity in catalytic combustion. With optimized porous structure, LSCO porous film showed a desired ability on light absorbance and water transfer, ensuring a high-efficiency and stable evaporation.  

More importantly, after contaminated by alga or other organics, LSCO porous film regenerated completely during a lower-temperature pyrolysis due to the activity in catalytic combustion. There is no doubt that less energy is consumed during the contaminants decomposition process.  

The easy and energy-saving regeneration via contaminant decomposition contributes to the wide application of perovskite oxides with catalytic active, acting as a desired choice in the practical solar-driven fresh generation in sustainability.