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A bioinspired, reusable, paper-based gold-nanoparticle film is fabricated by depositing an as-prepared gold-nanoparticle thin film on airlaid paper. This paper-based system with enhanced surface roughness and low thermal conductivity exhibits increased efficiency of evaporation, scale-up potential, and proven reusability. It is also demonstrated to be potentially useful in seawater desalination.

Plasmonic gold nanoparticles self-assembled at the air-water interface to produce an evaporative surface with local control inspired by skins and plant leaves. Fast and efficient evaporation is realized due to the instant and localized plasmonic heating at the evaporative surface. The bio-inspired evaporation process provides an alternative promising approach for evaporation, and has potential applications in sterilization, distillation, and heat transfer.

Transparent polymer nanocomposites with high refractive index were prepared by grafting polymer chains onto anatase TiO 2 nanoparticles via a combination of phosphate ligand engineering and alkyneazide ''click'' chemistry. Highly crystalline TiO 2 nanoparticles with 5 nm diameter were synthesized by a solvothermal method and used as high refractive index filler. The synthesized phosphate-azide ligand anchors strongly onto the TiO 2 nanoparticle surface and the azide end group allows for attachment of poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (PGMA) polymer chains through an alkyne-azide ''click'' reaction. The refractive index of the composite material increased linearly from 1.5 up to 1.8 by increasing the loading of TiO 2 particles to 30 vol % (60 wt %). UV-vis spectra show that the nanocomposites exhibited a transparency around 90% throughout the visible light range. It was also found that the PGMAgrafted TiO 2 nanoparticles can be well dispersed into a commercial epoxy resin, forming transparent high refractive index TiO 2 -epxoy nanocomposites.

Discovering physicochemical principles for simultaneous harvesting of multiform energy from the environment will advance current sustainable energy technologies. Here we explore photochemical phase transitionsa photochemistry−thermophysics coupled regimefor coharvesting of solar and thermal energy. In particular, we show that photon energy and ambient heat can be stored together and released on demand as high-temperature heat, enabled by room-temperature photochemical crystal↔liquid transitions of engineered molecular photoswitches. Integrating the two forms of energy in single-component molecular materials is capable of providing energy capacity beyond that of traditional solar or thermal energy storage systems based solely on molecular photoisomerization or phase change, respectively. Significantly, the ambient heat that is harvested during photochemical melting into liquid of the low-melting-point, metastable isomer can be released as high-temperature heat by recrystallization of the high-melting-point, parent isomer. This reveals that photon energy drives the upgrading of thermal energy in such a hybrid energy system. Rationally designed small-molecule azo switches achieve high gravimetric energy densities of 0.3–0.4 MJ/kg with long-term storage stability. Rechargeable solar thermal battery devices are fabricated, which upon light triggering provide gravimetric power density of about 2.7 kW/kg and temperature increases of >20 °C in ambient environment. We further show their use as deicing coatings. Our work demonstrates a new concept of energy utilizationcombining solar energy and low-grade heat into higher-grade heatwhich unlocks the possibility of developing sustainable energy systems powered by a combination of natural sunlight and ambient heat.