This article skips over a few points, heres the paper:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2312751120?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed

So your idea seems plausible at first, but more information leads to the proposed photo molecular effect:

Illumination of hydrogel under solar or visible-spectrum light-emitting diode leads to evaporation rates exceeding the thermal evaporation limit, even in hydrogels without additional absorbers.

Also the absorption of both the water and gel are negligible