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Solar steam generation is one of the most promising technologies for desalination. In order to further promote the development of solar steam generation, a double-layer cellulose hydrogel (DCH) was designed and used as solar steam generation for seawater desalination. Under one sun illumination intensity (1 kW·m -2 ), the average evaporation rate and the steam evaporation efficiency reaches 1.582 kg·m -2  h -1 and 91.4 %, respectively. The durability test was performed to verify the long-time durability and antifouling property. Outdoor experiment was carried out to prove the high steam evaporation efficiency and desalination performance of DCH. This paves a way for the cellulose-based hydrogel as a biodegradable, low-cost and promising solar steam generation., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

A series of monobenzoporphyrins (WH1-WH4) bearing different conjugated spacer groups were designed and synthesized as sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells. Although a phenyl spacer only has a minimal impact on the absorption bands of the monobenzoporphyrin, an ethynylphenyl (WH3) or a vinyl (WH4) spacer redshifts and broadens the absorption bands of the dyes to result in much enhanced light-harvesting ability. Dye-sensitized solar cells based on these monobenzoporphyrin dyes displayed remarkable differences in power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). The monobenzoporphyrin bearing no spacer (WH1) resulted in a PCE of only 0.5 %; in contrast, the monobenzoporphyrin bearing vinyl spacers (WH4) achieved a PCE of 5.2 %. The high efficiency of the WH4 cell is attributed to the higher light-harvesting ability, the lesser extent of aggregation on the TiO2 surface, and the more favorable electron-density distributions of the HOMO and LUMO for electron injection and collection. This work demonstrates the exceptional tunability of benzoporphyrins as sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells., (© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)