Solar-driven interfacial desalination is a promising strategy to address freshwater shortages. Water evaporation can be enhanced through confinement capillarity by generating ultra-thin water layers on the internal surfaces of porous photothermal materials. However, realizing confinement capillarity relies on coatings composed of aggregated nanospheres, which likely detach under mechanical compression, limiting their practical application. Herein, nature-inspired crack patterns are introduced into adhesive photothermal supramolecular materials, metal–phenolic network coatings, forming C-MPNs to achieve durable confinement capillarity. The crack patterns can be controlled to optimize water transport through narrow channels, enhancing the evaporation rate from 1.6 to 3.3 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ while preventing salt accumulation during seawater desalination. Furthermore, the cracks serve as buffer zones, significantly improving the mechanical stability of C-MPN coatings under compression (exhibiting negligible change after 300 cycles)—overcoming a key challenge that has hindered the practical application of confinement capillarity. Furthermore, due to the enhanced confinement capillarity in C-MPNs, high evaporation performance is sustained even as the size of the photothermal material increases—a rare characteristic among 3D photothermal materials. This work provides fundamental insights into the design of photothermal coatings with confinement capillarity, paving the way for their application in solar desalination.

中文翻译：

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具有耐用约束毛细管的裂纹金属-酚醛网络，用于增强太阳能海水淡化

太阳能驱动的界面海水淡化是解决淡水短缺的一个有前途的策略。通过在多孔光热材料的内表面产生超薄的水层，可以通过约束毛细作用来增强水蒸发。然而，实现约束毛细作用依赖于由聚集纳米球组成的涂层，这些涂层在机械压缩下可能会脱落，从而限制了它们的实际应用。在本文中，将自然启发的裂纹图案引入粘合光热超分子材料、金属-酚醛网络涂层中，形成 C-MPN 以实现持久的约束毛细作用。可以控制裂缝模式以优化通过狭窄通道的水传输，将蒸发速率从 1.6 kg m-2 h-1 提高到 3.3 kg ^{m-2 h-1}，同时防止海水淡化过程中的盐分积累。此外，裂纹用作缓冲区，显著提高了 C-MPN 涂层在压缩下的机械稳定性（在 300 次循环后变化可以忽略不计）——克服了阻碍约束毛细管实际应用的关键挑战。此外，由于 C-MPN 中的约束毛细作用增强，即使光热材料尺寸增加，也能保持高蒸发性能——这在 3D 光热材料中是罕见的特性。这项工作为具有约束毛细管的光热涂层的设计提供了基本见解，为它们在太阳能海水淡化中的应用铺平了道路。