基于聚多巴胺的人造黑色素材料因具有与天然黑色素相似的结构与性质，被认为是能在多领域发挥作用的理想仿生材料。虽然传统聚多巴胺具有优秀的光热转换效率和可加工性，但其对太阳光较弱的吸收能力(如较小的摩尔吸光系数和较窄的吸光范围)大大限制了人造黑色素在海水蒸腾淡化领域的应用。本项目拟从增强材料对太阳光的吸收能力这一核心学术思想出发，提出四种不同的合成策略来理性设计和制备具有强光热效应的新型人造黑色素材料：（1）氮氧自由基引发多巴胺聚合策略，（2）碱性氨基酸催化多巴胺聚合策略，（3）金属离子掺杂聚多巴胺材料的制备策略，和（4）光敏有机分子与多巴胺共混聚合策略。本项目希望从材料的构效关系出发，通过大分子层面的设计实现对人造黑色素物理化学性质的有效调控，特别是改善其整体光热效应。本项目还会将目标材料与各种基底材料复合，通过合理的表面修饰与加工方法制作具有高效率高稳定性的海水淡化装置。

Polydopamine-based synthetic melanins possess similar chemical structures and physical properties as natural resources, rendering them ideal candidates in bioinspired materials for a wide range of applications. Although conventional polydopamine possesses excellent photothermal conversion efficiency and can be easily fabricated, its low capability towards sunlight absorbance （i.e. relative low molar absorption coefficient and narrow absorption spectrum）greatly limits its further utilization in seawater desalination. This proposal strives to employ 4 different strategies for the preparation of new synthetic melanin materials with strong photothermal effects via improving their sunlight absorbing capability: (1) using nitroxyl radical to initiate dopamine polymerization, (2) using basic amino acid to catalyze dopamine polymerization, (3) preparation of metal ion-doped polydopamine materials, and (4) copolymerization of small molecular photosensitizer and dopamine. It is anticipated that we are able to tune the physicochemical properties of synthetic melanins, particularly for improving their total photothermal effects by understanding the structure-property relationship and macromolecular rational design. The resulting new synthetic melanins will be used to further prepare high efficient and stable photothermal nanocomposites as well as devices for seawater desalination after surface engineering and material fabrication.