Bioinspired Hollow Fibers With Efficient Transport Channels for Wide Humidity Atmospheric Water Harvesting

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Authors: Yaxuan Wang, Jiarui Zhang, Ting Xu, Xuan Wang, Meng Zhang, Junjie Qi, Han Fei Zhang, Kun Liu, Liyu Zhu, Lin Dai, Chuanling Si
Cited by: 8
References: 65

Abstract

ABSTRACT To address global freshwater scarcity, atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) offers a sustainable solution by extracting moisture from air. However, existing AWH materials struggle to combine high water uptake across a wide humidity range with portability. To resolve this limitation, a cotton‐like hollow fiber with low moisture vapor transmission resistance and fast adsorption kinetics is fabricated by coaxial wet‐spinning. The hybrid fiber employs sulfonated cellulose nanofiber (s‐CNF) and sodium alginate (SA) as hydrophilic network to provide effective moisture retention, and used carbon nanotube (CNT) for photothermal water evaporation. The hollow architecture provides additional sites for LiCl loading and efficient water vapor transport pathways. Therefore, the assembled s‐CNF/CNT/SA‐LiCl fibers demonstrate outstanding water adsorption performance across a wide humidity range (0.41 g/g at 11% RH and 5.00 g/g at 95% RH). Moreover, the hollow structure significantly enhances desorption efficiency, achieving a desorption rate of 5.88 kg/(kg·h), approximately twice that of solid fibers. The hybrid fibers can be woven into textiles and incorporated into flexible, wearable atmospheric water harvesting devices, achieving a water production rate of 4.55 g g day − 1 . This work establishes a novel inspiration for developing scalable, portable, and solar‐driven wide humidity water harvesting devices.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Solar-Powered Water Purification Methods Surface Modification and Superhydrophobicity Adsorption and Cooling Systems

Publication details

Journal / source
Advanced Functional Materials
Publisher
Wiley
Volume
36
Issue
46
Publication date
19 March 2026
Language
EN