Solar-Thermal Water Evaporation: A Review

Solar-thermal water evaporation (SWE) has received much interest in recent years due to a few seminal works on materials innovation and thermal management. With many studies proposing applications like water desalination and sanitization, SWE has become attractive as it can use renewable energy to potentially address pressing water-energy nexus challenges. In this Review, we follow the most researched aspects of SWE indicated by the analytics from text mining the abstracts of papers in this field. We review recent research activities in each aspect and discuss how these studies help improve the overall efficiency of the SWE processes and/or advance their applications, besides pointing out critical deficiencies in the research. We also highlight some interesting findings and inventions emerging from this field. On the basis of the review, we present our perspectives from the scientific and engineering points of view in the hope of providing insights to shape the research direction of the field, promote its further advancement, and eventually help realize the promised applications.