Solar interfacial evaporation is an effective way to address water scarcity in the 21st century. However, when the evaporator is exposed to light for a long time, salt would be deposited on its surface, leading to degradation of evaporation performance. Herein, an easily fabricated bilayer interfacial carbon–ZrO2/polydopamine/polyurethane foam (carbon–ZrO2/PDA/PU) evaporator is developed, in which carbonized Zr‐based metal–organic frameworks are used as photothermal layer with a light absorption of about 98% in the range of 200–2500 nm and PDA‐modified PU foam is used as the substrate with well water absorption ability and thermal insulation performance. The evaporation system achieves an evaporation rate of 1.626 kg m−2 h−1 and a photothermal conversion efficiency of 80.8% under 1 sun irradiation. Moreover, no salt deposition is generated and the evaporation rate keeps steady even in 10 wt% brine with prolonged light exposure. Therefore, the evaporator has great potential in solar water desalination and alleviates water shortage problems for less developed regions.

Lightweight polyolefin elastomer (POE) foams are of great interest in numerous fields. However, POE is difficult to foaming and obtaining the ideal cellular structures before cross-linking. Herein, low-molecular-weight trans-polyoctylene rubber (TOR) with lots of double bonds and low molecular weight was introduced into the POE matrix to improve their vulcanizing and foaming process. Then, a series of lightweight POE/TOR composite foams with adjustable cellular structures and outstanding performance were prepared by supercritical CO 2 foaming. It was worth noting that the gel content and foaming temperature windows were greatly improved under the action of TOR, and a record-breaking density as low as 0.036 g/cm 3 for POE-based composite foams was harvested. In addition, the as-prepared elastomer foams exhibited rapid shrinkage but slow recovery feature due to the diffusivity difference of gas and cross-linking nature of materials, and its recovery ratio could reach 91.3%. More interestingly, the conversion law of the corresponding density change between hard and soft materials was discovered, and extra-soft POE-based composite foams (like Shore C below 10) were obtained, which could be twisted, folded, compressed, stretched, bent, and rolled with ease. Furthermore, the residual strain and hysteresis loss ratio of as-prepared elastomer foams were as low as 1.56 and 12.95%, respectively. These distinct advantages together with the green foaming process make the composite elastomer foams very promising toward high-performance flexible cellular polymeric materials.

Electronic skin (e-skin) is a bionic human skin material that is widely used in artificial intelligence devices. Pressure sensors, as the main component of e-skin, can perceive active pressure spatial distribution in real time. However, in addition to perceiving touch and pressure, human skin also has the ability to sense pain after being impacted or heavily pressed. Therefore, it is hoped that e-skin has the ability to sense the occurrence and disappearance of pain. Here, a pressure memory sensor (PM sensor) based on pressure memory foam (PM foam) was fabricated by a simple and easy-to-scale preparation process. PM foam exhibited excellent electrical conductivity due to the dense three-dimensional conductive network formed by carbon nanotubes (CNTs). PM sensors can achieve pressure memory and spontaneous recovery performance due to self-adhesion between the cell walls provided by polyborosiloxane (PBS). We investigated the effects of CNT and PBS contents on PM sensor sensitivity and memory time and realized the adjustment of sensitivity (0.012–0.099 kPa–1) and memory time (54–325 s). The sensor can bionically sense pain under heavy pressure or impact. In addition, PM foam exhibited excellent electromagnetic interference shielding performance and achieved a shielding effectiveness of more than 30 dB. PM foam realized the intelligent regulation of electromagnetic wave reflection and electromagnetic wave absorption through the conversion of a foam state and solid state. PM foam had excellent Joule heating performance to resist extreme cold environments. Multifunctional pressure memory and pain bionic sensors have great significance and application prospects in e-skin.