Recent Advances in Solar-Driven Evaporation Systems
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Christian DennisRecent Advances in Solar-Driven Evaporation Systems
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Christian DennisJournal of
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Recent advances in solar-driven evaporation
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Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/d0ta08869b
systems
Zhourui Xu, ae Zida Li,a Yihang Jiang, a
Gaixia Xu, a Mingwei Zhu,b
Wing-Cheung Law, c Ken-Tye Yong, d
Yanshuai Wang,e Chengbin Yang,a
Biqin Dong e and Feng Xing*e
Nowadays, energy and the environment have become critical issues for determining the sustainability of the
Earth. Freshwater crises, as an increasingly serious global problem, pose a great threat to our economies,
the environment and us. Solar-driven evaporation has emerged as a promising and sustainable approach
to convert solar energy into clean water. In fact, the production of freshwater is not only governed by
heat generation at the interface, but the process also relies on the coordination and cooperation of
functional modules in the solar-driven evaporation system. This review begins with system designs of
solar evaporators, considering thermal manipulation structures, water transportation pathways, and
vapour condensation modules, which focus on improving the overall energy utilization, long-term
usability, and freshwater yield. This is followed by a summary and discussions of cutting-edge solar
Received 9th September 2020
Accepted 30th October 2020
evaporation applications and their underlying mechanisms. Finally, existing challenges and potential
solutions for future applications are discussed and provided. This review aims to provide useful
DOI: 10.1039/d0ta08869b
guidelines and references to scientists and researchers for the future development of clean water
rsc.li/materials-a generation systems.
Solar-driven vapor generation, which utilizes sunlight as the
1. Introduction energy source to accelerate vapor production from the sea, is
With the ever-growing population on the Earth within the past a promising approach to alleviate the severe situation of water
century, water scarcity has become one of the major threats to scarcity with minimal environmental impacts.8 Over the past
human society.1 In this age, nearly two-thirds of the world's decade, the strategy of solar vapor generation has undergone
population live under the shadow of water shortage.2,3 In recent a rapid evolution from a volumetric conguration,9,10 in which
decades, huge efforts have been devoted to developing efficient the photothermal agents are suspended or dispersed in water to
and reliable methods to tackle water scarcity issues. However, thermalize the bulk water, to an interfacial conguration, in
the existing technologies which have been applied for large- which solar evaporators oat at the air–water interface to ach-
scale water supply were invented at the expense of aggravating ieve localized heating, with increasing understanding of
energy problems4–6 or, even worse, overly exploiting the envi- thermal utilization. Compared with volumetric heating, inter-
ronment,4,7 and are certainly not long-term solutions. There- facial heating actively connes thermal energy at the water
fore, sustainable and economical technologies for freshwater surface and reduces the heat loss to the bulk water, resulting in
production are urgently needed. an enhanced water evaporation rate. In addition, the facile
preparation,11 automatic operation,12 and low capital invest-
ment13,14 features of solar-driven evaporation endow it with
great potential for deployment especially in off-grid and remote
a
Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, areas. In view of its advantages, great efforts have been devoted
School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, by scientists in the past few years to developing an interfacial-
Shenzhen, 518060, China based solar evaporator with the ultimate goal of freshwater
b
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and production.
Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
c
Although huge progress has been made in the eld of solar
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, 11 Yuk Choi Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
evaporation, from a practical point of view, current solar evap-
d
School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, orators still suffer from immature energy and water manipula-
639798, Singapore tion, resulting in unsatisfactory freshwater productivity. The
e
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Durability for Marine Civil Engineering, basic concept behind solar vapor generation involves several
College of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen sub-processes, including optical and thermal energy
518060, China. E-mail: [email protected]
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utilization,15,16 water transportation,17,18 vapor manipulation19,20 contributing to efficient energy harnessing, salt rejection, and
and water collection.21,22 In the early stage of solar evaporation, water harvesting, it is thus time to systematically summarize the
scientists paid a lot of attention to photothermal materials to pros and cons of the technologies and map out guidelines for
pursue intensied interfacial evaporation.23,24 However, the supporting the future development of clean water generation
production of distilled water is not only governed by heat systems. Herein, we rst present a mathematical model to
generation at the interface, but also relies on the coordination quantitatively evaluate the system performance of solar distil-
and cooperation of each functional component in the solar lation at different stages. Then, we demonstrate the signicance
evaporation system. A typical structure of a solar evaporation and effects of energy input, water transportation, and vapor
system for freshwater production is illustrated in Fig. 1. Recent manipulation on the performance enhancement of individual
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advances in this eld have shied to the system designs of stages in solar distillation. Next, we summarize the recent
functional modules, including thermal manipulation struc- progress of applications based on solar-driven evaporation and
tures,25 water transportation pathways,11 and vapor condensa- discuss the underlying mechanism. Finally, a conclusion and
tion systems,26 which aim to tackle the problems of energy remaining challenges in this eld are presented.
dissipation,27 salt crystallization,28,29 and water yield26 occurring
in the solar evaporation process. These developments signi-
cantly promote the performance of solar distillation from 2. Performance evaluation and
different angles, thus maturing this green technology to a new calculation
stage.
To date, many reviews related to solar absorbing materials A solar-driven evaporation system aims to produce freshwater
and specic applications have been reported. For example, using solar energy. In this process, the system rstly takes in
reviews reported by Gao et al.30,31 mainly focus on the investi- solar energy, and then converts it into heat to vaporize water,
gation of photothermal materials and system designs for energy followed by freshwater generation by condensation. Any stage in
manipulation. The review reported by Dao et al.32 only describes this process involves rather complex physical phenomena and
recent advances in carbon-based sunlight absorbers for solar- energy changes. In short, the energy conversion and vapor
driven evaporation systems. Zhang et al.33 presented a compre- generation mainly happen around the solar absorber, where the
hensive review of photothermal-assisted applications, including air–water interface is located. Taking a control volume enclos-
distillation, sewage treatment, photocatalysis, and water har- ing the solar absorber, as shown in Fig. 2, and assuming
vesting from the air. Liu et al.34 summarized and analyzed the a steady state, there are three major energy ows, namely solar
critical processes involved in a solar desalination system with radiation, heat loss, and mass ow of water/vapor, all three of
mathematical models, but without consideration of freshwater which must remain in balance. Several metrics, including
production. Comprehensive reviews considering the whole photothermal conversion efficiency, solar-to-steam efficiency,
process of solar-driven evaporation have been published.35,36 and water evaporation rate, have been proposed to evaluate the
Nevertheless, these reviews have been mainly focused on pho- efficiency of energy utilization in the different stages. Efforts
tothermal effects and the structural architecture of the solar- have been constantly devoted to improving the performance by
driven evaporation system was not sufficiently discussed. maximizing these metrics. Interestingly, vapor condensation, as
Given the recent reported advances in system designs the nal and most straightforward subprocess for freshwater
production, has usually been neglected in performance evalu-
ation. Each subprocess in the solar distillation exhibits unique
features and functions, which play a critical role in the overall
Fig. 2 The three major processes governing the energy balance of the
control volume (boxed in red dashes), namely solar radiation, mass
transport, and heat loss, indicated by arrows in orange, blue, and red,
Fig. 1 Schematic of a solar evaporation system. respectively. q, heat flux. ṁ , mass flow rate. h, enthalpy.
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performance for freshwater production. In this section, 2.1.2 Photothermal conversion. Although light harvesting
performance evaluation methods for individual stages during is a decisive ability for acquiring solar energy, the subsequent
solar evaporation are provided, aiming to clarify the corre- photothermal conversion is crucial to generate heat to vaporize
sponding underlying physical process and shed new insights on water. This process requires a solar absorber to convert sunlight
performance enhancement. energy to thermal energy effectively, rather than undergo radi-
ative re-emission.
2.1 Solar–thermal conversion Various nanomaterials, including inorganic38,39 and organic
materials,40,41 have been exploited for solar-driven evaporation.
Solar–thermal conversion is the initial stage of solar-driven
To compare the performances between different materials,
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evaporation, which lays the foundation for freshwater genera-
light-induced thermal generation is quantitatively analyzed
tion. In general, solar–thermal conversion comprises two parts:
with photothermal conversion efficiency. Conventionally,
light harvesting and photothermal conversion. An under-
a direct experimental method to acquire photothermal conver-
standing of these process is of great importance to enhancing
sion efficiency measures the temperature variation under an
the performance from the basic and motivating developments
incoming light source. Typically, the solar absorber material is
in exploring advanced system designs.
dispersed in the solution phase and a light source shone on it.
2.1.1 Light harvesting. The light harvesting ability of the
The total mass, heat capacity, and light absorbance of the
solar absorber is the prerequisite for attaining efficient light to
sample material, as well as the light intensity, as another
heat conversion. When solar radiation is incident upon the
important factor, are also taken into account to calculate the
surface of the solar absorber, the irradiation may be reected,
efficiency. With the same measurement of the container system,
transmitted, or absorbed. The absorption is the net energy
the photothermal conversion efficiency of the solar absorber
inow and can be expressed by
material can be estimated. However, it is noteworthy that this
method is typically used for single-wavelength light-to-heat
qabsorption ¼ qsolar qreflection qtransmission (1)
conversion. For solar-driven evaporation, which occupies the
The absorptivity of the solar absorber a is dened as the whole spectrum of solar irradiation, it might be more reason-
fraction of the solar radiation absorbed, reectivity r is dened able to compare the thermal energy generation with the input
as the fraction reected, and transmissivity s is dened as the solar energy within a dened period.
fraction transmitted. Solar radiation possesses a spectrum
which resembles a 5778 K blackbody, with deviations mainly 2.2 Water evaporation
due to atmospheric absorption and scattering, and the majority
In order to maximize the vaporization efficiency, the generated
of the irradiation energy lies in the ultraviolet (3%), visible
heat should be used entirely for the purpose of water evaporation.
light (45%), and infrared (52%) bands with a wavelength in
However, in practice, heat dissipation will inevitably consume
the range of 300 to 2500 nm.37 As such, characterization of
thermal energy and undermine the evaporation efficiency. Thus,
a material's absorption, reectivity, and transmissivity is con-
to control the thermal distribution during water evaporation, it is
ducted in this wavelength range. Since solar absorptance is
essential to take a look at the heat allocation. Herein, we
a measure of the ability of a photothermal module to harvest
summarize the critical factors that affect heat occupation and
solar energy, it is determined by the ratio of the total acquired
describe the physical processes with mathematical equations.
solar radiation to the incident radiation. Because most solar
2.2.1 Heat dissipation. As the temperature of the solar
absorbers appear opaque in this wavelength region, the trans-
absorber and water within the control volume is elevated above
missivity is commonly near zero. Therefore, the absorptivity
the surroundings, heat inevitably dissipates into the
a can be experimentally determined by measuring the reection
surroundings, resulting in energy loss. The heat transfer
at different wavelengths, following
happens mainly by three routes: conduction into bulk water,
ð 2500 nm
convection into the surrounding air, and radiation into the
½1 rl ðlÞGl ðlÞdl
surroundings. The conduction heat ux qconduction can be esti-
a ¼ 300 nm ð 2500 nm (2)
mated with
Gl ðlÞdl
300 nm vT
qconduction ¼ k (4)
where rl is the reectivity and Gl is the spectral irradiation, as vx border
a function of wavelength l. Thus, the absorbed solar irradiation vT
where k is the conductivity of water and is the
can be determined using vx border
temperature gradient at the border of the control volume,
qabsorption ¼ aqsolar (3) though estimating the temperature gradient is not a trivial task.
The convection heat ux qconvection can be estimated with
High absorptivity is a property of a solar absorber that is
critical to achieving optimal efficiency. As discussed in the qconvection ¼ h(TPTM TN) (5)
following sections, owing to innovations in topographical and
geometrical design, which signicantly reduce the reection, an where h denotes the natural convection coefficient in a buoy-
absorptivity of over 95% has been able to be reached. ancy-driven ow, which is dependent mainly on temperature
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and surface dimension. h can be estimated using empirical solar–thermal conversion efficiency and evaporation rate has
equations and is normally in the order of 1 W m2 K.42–44 The been the goal of solar–thermal research. Currently, researchers
radiation heat ux can be calculated with have been able to achieve a thermal efficiency of up to 94%.46 In
an ideal case, water evaporates in an isothermal process with
qradiation ¼ 3s(TPTM4 TN4) (6) minimal enthalpy change, and solar energy is completely con-
verted to the evaporation enthalpy of water. Under one sun
where 3 is the emissivity of the solar absorber surface, s is the illumination (1000 W m2) and assuming a water temperature
Stefan–Boltzmann constant, and TN the temperature of the of 25 C, where Dh is roughly 2400 kJ kg1, the mass ow rate of
surroundings. the generated vapor is estimated to be 1.50 kg m2 h1. This
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Due to the empirical nature of heat ux calculation in value can serve as a benchmark in the performance evaluation
general, the heat loss determined using these equations of endeavors in system design.
provides only a rough estimate. However, it offers important
implications for strategies for the minimization of energy loss.
2.3 Vapor condensation
For example, assuming the temperature of the solar absorber is
41 C and of the surroundings is 27 C, the conductive, Desalinated water can be collected by condensing the generated
convective, and radiative heat losses are 2.3%, 3.0%, and vapor. By reducing the temperature of the vapor below the
4.0% of the solar energy,43 suggesting that the three heat loss saturation temperature Tsat., commonly known as the dew
mechanisms make similar contributions. point, vapor condenses into liquid water. In general, conden-
2.2.2 Mass ow of water/vapor. Liquid water ows into the sation can happen in three ways: homogeneous condensation,
control volume at a temperature of Tliquid and an enthalpy of where water droplets form within the vapor and result in a fog;
hliquid, evaporates at the surface of the solar absorber, and ows direct contact condensation, where vapor comes into contact
out of the control volume as vapor at a temperature of Tvapor with liquid water and merges into it; and surface condensation,
with an enthalpy of hvapor. The enthalpy change, Dh, can be where vapor touches a cold surface and condensate forms on
estimated by adding sensible heat and phase change the surface. Due to its ease of implementation, surface
enthalpies, following condensation is the most commonly adopted method for water
collection in solar stills.
Dh ¼ hvapor hliquid ¼ cp(Tvapor Tliquid) + hlg (7) Surface condensation can be initiated when vapor comes
into contact with a surface with a temperature Tsurface lower
where cp is the specic heat and hlg is the heat of evaporation at than Tsat. and liquid nucleates on the surface. The condensation
Tvapor, with the assumption that the dependence of cp on process is then driven by free convection of the vapor phase, and
temperature is negligible. However, we suggest that, whenever thus the geometry of the surface and the ow condition of the
applicable, the enthalpy change should be calculated using vapor phase have signicant impacts on the effectiveness of the
experimentally measured thermodynamic properties from condensation. Latent heat is released and transferred to the
thermodynamic databases. surface, and the total heat transfer can be calculated from42
The mass ow rate is usually determined by continuously
monitoring the weight change of the water using an analytical Qcondensation ¼ hcondensationAsurface(Tsat. Tsurface) (9)
balance. However, it should be noted that under dark condi-
tions, water also takes in heat from the surroundings and where hcondensation is the heat transfer coefficient due to
evaporates. As such, a proper control experiment should be condensation and Asurface is the area of the surface. hcondensation
performed, and the baseline mass ow rate generated under represents the effectiveness of the heat transfer in the
dark conditions should be subtracted.10,45 condensation process and can be estimated using empirical
As we mentioned earlier in Section 2.1.2, the photothermal equations. Once the value of hcondensation has been obtained, the
conversion efficiency of a solar absorber is difficult to calculate mass ow rate of the condensate can be calculated from
according to conventional methods. However, from a system-
hcondensation Asurface Tsat: Tsurface
atic point of view, such efficiency can be described as solar-to- m¼ (10)
Dh
steam conversion efficiency, which denotes the energy applied
for water vaporization versus the total energy supplied. Briey, where Dh is the enthalpy difference between the saturated vapor
solar–thermal conversion efficiency h is described as the frac- and liquid water at Tsurface. Therefore, to achieve optimal water
tion of the solar irradiance that has been utilized to generate production, the condensation heat transfer should be maxi-
vapor. It can be calculated following mized. Eqn (10) implies four major strategies to increase m: _
reducing Dh, increasing hcondensation or Asurface, and increasing
mDh the difference between Tsat. and Tsurface.
h¼ (8)
qsolar Upon condensation on the surface, the condensate can form
either a liquid lm or drops, in processes termed lm
where m_ is the mass ow rate.
condensation or dropwise condensation, respectively, depend-
The evaporation rate, which is essentially the mass ow rate
ing on the surface properties. In general, hydrophilic surfaces,
_ characterizes the productivity of the vapor generation
m,
such as glass surfaces, lead to lm condensation, and hydro-
process. As discussed in the following sections, increasing the
phobic surfaces, such as plastic surfaces, lead to dropwise
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condensation. In either case, the condensate poses additional absorbance32,50 and promising heat conversion efficiency.51
thermal resistance and thus hinders the heat transfer. In Various types of novel materials, including plasmonic nano-
dropwise condensation, the condensate occupies less surface particles,52–55 carbon-based materials,56–62 MXene
38,63,64
area, and the hcondensation can be signicantly larger than that in membranes, and semiconductor nanomaterials,65–67 have
lm condensation.42 However, solar irradiation normally needs been studied and reformed to achieve efficient sunlight capture
to pass through the condensation surface before reaching the and thermal generation. Readers who are interested in the
photothermal materials in most solar stills, and drops generate details of photothermal generation, materials selection, and
signicant reection, drastically reducing the efficiency of solar materials design, can nd more information in the review by
absorption.21 Therefore, it has been recommended that hydro- Gao et al.31 Currently the performance of photothermal
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philic surfaces should be used for condensation in solar stills. conversion is approaching a ceiling. In order to further pursue
The inclination of the surface can affect the retrieval of the the water evaporation rate in solar evaporation systems, the
condensate and its accumulation on the surface, thus also research focus is gradually shiing to system designs with
affecting hcondensation. So researchers have looked into the effect sophisticated energy management from materials investiga-
of inclination angle on vapor condensation.21 In addition, active tions.68–71 Under the assumption of excellent heat conversion
removal of the condensate from the surface by wiping or efficiency, several strategies are proposed that can be employed
vibration has also been reported in an attempt to enhance the for the judicious design of solar evaporation systems endowed
heat transfer.47 with superior energy utilization, including (1) strengthening
The efficacy of increasing Asurface is straightforward and has sunlight capture with a modied surface topography; (2)
indeed been conrmed in the effort to maximize condensate increasing thermal accumulation by a concentration scheme;
production.22 Several methods have also been proposed to (3) recovering additional energy from the environment, and (4)
increase the difference between Tsat. and Tsurface. Essentially, reducing the enthalpy change of evaporation, as shown in Fig. 3.
any methods that increase solar absorption and water evapo- The following sections will discuss the proposed strategies in
ration can boost the humidity within the chamber, which in detail to demonstrate the relationship between system design
turn increases Tsat.. Since vapor condensation releases latent and energy manipulation.
heat onto the surface, heat must be effectively dissipated from
the surface to the surroundings to prevent Tsurface from rising.
To achieve this goal, measures such as cooling the surface and 3.1 Modication of surface topography
using a thinner surface to accelerate heat conduction have been In the past few years, great progress has been made in devel-
tested.48,49 oping interfacial solar evaporators with promising light
absorption (covering the entire solar spectrum)72 and remark-
3. System designs for energy able photothermal efficiency.33 Although higher energy utiliza-
manipulation tion efficiency has been realized, compared to the volumetric
system, membrane-based interfacial solar evaporators still
Sunlight capture and photothermal generation are of great suffer from signicant optical and energy losses,14,73,74 regard-
importance in solar-driven evaporation. In the past few years, less of the light-absorbing properties of the photothermal
numerous research works have been devoted to developing materials. Such losses originate from diffuse reectance and
photothermal materials with broadband sunlight thermal radiation, which compromise the energy inux and
Fig. 3 A schematic demonstration of energy manipulation strategies.
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water evaporation. Moreover, in practical conditions, the Fig. 4a, a series of samples with tunable apex angles (180 , 121 ,
changes in solar angle might be another issue to affect solar 86 , 70 , and 56 ) were prepared to investigate the effect of the
absorbance and vapor production.12 Hence, to address the opening angles on photothermal performance. Owing to the
aforementioned challenges, solar evaporators with a designed structure-dependent optical properties, the surface temperature
surface topography have been emerging in recent years. increased as the apex angle became smaller. A maximized solar
3.1.1 Enhanced light absorption by multiple reections. evaporation rate of 1.70 kg m2 h1 was achieved with the
One of the early solutions which aimed to recover the dissipated optimized cone apex angle, which was nearly 1.7 times higher
light energy and thermal energy was proposed by Shi and co- than that of the corresponding planar system.
workers, who created a cup-shaped solar absorber to reduce The complexity of the surface structure of solar absorbers
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energy loss.16 The reected energy from the evaporator basin was proved to be effective in inuencing multiple reections.
can be efficiently reabsorbed by multiple reections, providing Another origami-type solar evaporator with a ower-like surface
extra energy for heat generation. Specically, a maximum topography was designed by Li and co-workers.77 According to
evaporation rate of 2.04 kg m2 h1 was achieved under one sun Fig. 4b, origami structures with individual folding structures
irradiation with an optimal cup structure, and such a value was (AF-0F, 4F, 8F, 16F, and Origami Rose) were prepared to
far higher than that of a 2D planar system (1.21 kg m2 h1). A demonstrate the light–matter interaction. It was found that the
similar strategy which aims to recover the reected sunlight was number of petals and the depth of the folded area are both
introduced by Xu et al., who designed an origami solar absorber critical to the overall light absorption and water evaporation
made of pencil-drawn paper.75 Compared to a planar system, rate. Hence, the Origami Rose sample, with the most petals and
the origami system with a folded angle of 90 has a 41% larger the deepest depth can afford the most rounds of light reec-
surface area, which is benecial for solar absorption and water tions, exhibiting the highest optical absorption of 99% and
evaporation. In a eld experiment, the distillate productivity of water evaporation rate of 2.12 kg m2 h1 under one sun irra-
the origami system was 22% higher than that of a planar diation. However, it is worth mentioning that, even though the
system, owing to the reabsorption of dissipated sunlight. Wang Origami Rose possessed the best energy utilization in this work,
and co-workers fabricated an articial 3D cone composed of the surface temperature was much lower than that of the planar
a polypyrrole (PPy)-coated polyvinylidene uoride (PVDF) PPy disk during the solar evaporation experiments. Such
membrane to study the structure–energy nexus.76 As shown in a nding may contradict the previous concept that a higher
Fig. 4 Schematic of energy recovery by a solar evaporation system with a designed surface topography. (a) Artificial 3D cone-shaped structure.
Reproduced with permission.70 Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry. An isolation PPy-based origami solar evaporation system with
flower-like surface topography. (b) A schematic of the structure of solar evaporation systems and the light–matter interaction. Reproduced with
permission.71 Copyright 2018, Wiley-VCH.
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surface temperature can induce stronger water evaporation. parallelogram faces. With increasing surface areal density
According to the authors, the enlarged surface area of the (Aactive/Aproject: the ratio of the evaporation area to the projection
Origami Rose can afford extensive evaporation, hence giving area), vapor production was increased due to the enhanced light
rise to lower thermal accumulation than that in the planar capture and heat loss recovery. With the optimal areal density of
device. Furthermore, a low surface temperature was also bene- 4.65, nearly 100% of solar energy efficiency was absorbed with
cial for reducing the radiative energy loss and improving the an evaporation rate of 1.59 kg m2 h1, which was nearly 50%
energy utilization efficiency. higher than that of the planar system. To obtain more insight
By modifying the surface topography of the solar absorber, into the energy utilization phenomenon, an infrared camera
the performance of solar evaporation is hugely improved due to was used to capture the temperature distribution in the origami
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the enhanced sunlight capture, stronger heat generation, and system during the evaporation experiments. An inhomogeneous
enlarged evaporation area. Currently, the design of the surface spatial temperature distribution was observed across the
structures of solar absorbers plays a more signicant role in proposed origami periodic surface. As shown in Fig. 5b, with
performance enhancement than materials investigation. and without sunlight illumination, the valley folds always
However, there are still many issues that need to be solved. For exhibit a higher temperature than the mountain folds in a wet
example, although more dissipated energy can be reabsorbed state. Such a phenomenon can be explained by the stronger
with the increase in height of the sidewall and consequently water evaporation on the mountain fold. In addition, due to the
generate a higher temperature, the solar absorber may afford temperature gradient on each unit cell, thermal energy can be
greater inner humidity and hence inhibit vapor production. In further re-utilized due to the heat ux from the bottom to the
this case, the sustainability of the solar-driven evaporation top. Thus, both the reduced light reection by the concave
device may be greatly hindered. Hence, there is still much room structure and the inverse heat ux resulted in promising energy
for further modication. utilization. A similar isolation solar evaporation device made of
3.1.2 The evaporation of solar absorbers with a matrix PPy-functionalized cellulose paper with tunable microstruc-
form. It is clear that surface topography is crucial for efficient tures and macroscopic geometries was proposed by Ni and his
solar energy utilization. The previous examples demonstrate the co-workers.15 By folding the PPy-paper into a 3D “cootie-catcher-
effect of multiple reections and evaporation areas on the shaped” structure, a water evaporation rate of 2.99 kg m2 h1
overall performance of vapor production on a single unit. In was achieved under 1 sun irradiation, far exceeding the value
a more practical situation, a matrix of evaporation units is (1.47 kg m2 h1) of the 2D device.
required for large-scale freshwater generation. A periodic undulating surface structure can also be seen in
Hong and co-workers reported an origami-type solar evapo- nature. Sun et al. used carbonized sunower heads to achieve
ration system with a surface structure of periodic pleats.78 As efficient solar vapor generation.79 As shown in Fig. 5c, owing to
indicated in Fig. 5a, the periodic surface structure contains the numerous 3D cavities on the top surface, solar energy can be
repeated units with valleys and peaks, composed of four absorbed extensively with minimized diffuse energy reectance
and thermal radiation. In addition, the hugely enlarged evap-
oration area was benecial for water evaporation. Due to the
structural features, a solar evaporation rate of 1.51 kg m2 h1
and an evaporation efficiency of 100.4% was achieved under one
sun illumination (Fig. 5d). In contrast, carbonized sunower
head without the top bracts gave a much-reduced solar evapo-
ration rate of 1.18 kg m2 h1 and evaporation efficiency of
78.4%.
In practical applications of solar evaporation, it is very
important to consider the matrix form of the solar absorbers. It
is believed that the density and shape of the solar absorber unit
may hugely affect light absorption and vapor generation.
However, as far as we are concerned, there has been no research
study investigating and comparing the overall performance of
solar-driven evaporation systems in unit and matrix forms. We
may still acquire some insights from the research works
mentioned above. For example, Hong's work indicated the
relationship between surface areal density and vapor generation
rate, which may provide a rough direction for the future
Fig. 5 (a) A solar evaporation system with a surface structure of development of a solar evaporation system with a matrix form.
periodic pleats. (b) The temperature distribution of a 3D origami device 3.1.3 Compensation for the incident angle effect. Although
with/without 1 sun irradiation. Reproduced with permission.72 Copy-
great progress has been made to achieve smart energy
right 2018, American Chemical Society. (c) A solar evaporation system
made of carbonized sunflower heads. (d) The water evaporating management and efficient water evaporation in the lab, per-
performance of carbonized sunflower heads. Reproduced with forming solar vapor generation in an outdoor environment is
permission.73 Copyright 2020, American Chemical Society. quite different and more parameters need to be considered.
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One of the most signicant issues in the practical experiment is downgraded drastically with decreasing incident angle. The
the unstable sunlight intensity. In a laboratory experiment, hemispherical surface was capable of maintaining the highest
solar vapor devices are always perpendicularly illuminated by solar energy input from 0 to 90 , and showed promising
simulated sunlight with a stable intensity of 1 kW m1. potential to prolong the working period throughout the day.
However, in practical outdoor conditions, the sun moves Moreover, the hemispherical structure exhibits the best
through the sky with changing elevation angles throughout the performance in coping with the variation in solar angles in both
day. In most cases, only 50–90% of sunlight could arrive at the indoor and outdoor experiments. Aer 3 h of sunlight illumi-
solar receiver surface, depending on the weather conditions nation in eld experiments, a solar evaporation rate of 4.83 kg
(nearly 10–20% of energy diffusion occurs on sunny days and m2 was obtained by the 3D hemispherical system, which was
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50% occurs on cloudy days).12 Moreover, the randomly moving 15.8% higher than that of the cylindrical system (4.17 kg m2)
clouds would occasionally block the sunlight. In this case, there and 50.5% higher than that of the 2D planar system (3.21 kg
is little chance for a solar evaporation system to operate at its m2).
full potential. Nature already provides an elegant solution for efficient solar
An umbrella-shaped evaporation device made of graphene vapor generation. In recent years, carbonized biomasses have
oxide lm was designed by Li et al.80 As shown in Fig. 6a, due to received especial attention in solar vapor generation, due to
the promising light absorption of the graphene oxide and the their intrinsic surface structure for light trapping, fast water
umbrella-shaped morphology, the proposed 3D device can evaporation, thermal loss reduction, efficient water trans-
acquire sunlight from different incident angles. In a eld portation, and good scalability. Bian and co-workers introduced
experiment, nearly 24% enhancement of sunlight absorption a highly efficient solar evaporation system made of carbonized
was realized by the umbrella-shaped device, resulting in 1.43 tree-like furry magnolia fruit.81 As indicated in Fig. 6d, owing to
times higher vapor generation than the planar device. Similar the unique surface structure, which is composed of numbers of
work has been reported by Chen and co-workers.12 In order to carpels, multiple sunlight reections occurred, which efficiently
compensate for the varied solar elevation angles, a 3D hemi- recovered and recycled the incident solar energy, resulting in
spherical solar-driven evaporation device was designed. As 98.5% solar utilization efficiency. In addition, the large
shown in Fig. 6b and c, a high ratio of solar energy input is surface area and additional available free space (offered by the
achieved by the 3D hemispherical device with solar elevation staggered pod-like carpels) afforded fast vapor escape with
angles varying from 0 to 90 degrees. In order to simulate reduced vaporization enthalpy, which boosted the vapor
outdoor conditions, 2D planar, cylindrical, and 3D hemi- production throughout the day. Hence, an impressive solar
spherical devices were irradiated with wide incident angles (90 , vapor generation rate of 1.22 kg m2 h1 in the dark and 3.15 kg
80 , and 65 ) under moderate intensity (0.75 sun). The experi- m2 h1 under 1 sun irradiation was achieved. Similar to the 3D
mental results demonstrated that the water evaporation rate hemispherical system mentioned previously, the tree-like
and energy efficiency of the 3D hemispherical device remained isolation solar evaporation system can also collect more
constant while the performance of the other two systems was sunlight throughout the day than a 2D planar system. In an
Fig. 6 Several isolation solar evaporation systems with designed surface topography for offsetting the angle of the incidence effect. (a) An
umbrella-shaped system. Reproduced with permission.74 Copyright 2017, Oxford University Press. (b) A hemispheric-shaped system and (c) its
performance coping with varied light incident angles. Reproduced with permission.12 Copyright 2020, American Chemical Society. (d) The
carbonized tree-like furry magnolia fruit. Reproduced with permission.75 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH.
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outdoor experiment (from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.), a remarkable generation under concentrated incident light. Specically,
vapor production rate of 15.6 kg m2 was obtained by the tree- under 10 suns of illumination, a water evaporation rate of 11.8
like system, far succeeding that (4.2 kg m2) of a 2D evaporator kg m2 h1 was accomplished, far above the reported value
with the same ground area. under one sun. Mu and co-workers11 fabricated carbon aerogel
Previously mentioned designs compensated for the variation consisting of hollow carbon nanotubes to achieve an evapora-
in solar angles by always making sure that the surface of the tion rate of 4.2 kg m2 h1 under 3 suns with a surface
solar absorbers can be shone on by the sun. However, it is temperature of 54.6 C. Such values were much higher than
impossible to absorb the solar energy maximally throughout the those (1.44 kg m2 h1 water evaporation rate and 40.5 C
day. In contrast to passively compensating for the solar surface temperature) under 1 sun. Yang and co-workers
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absorption loss with pre-designed surface structures, Qian prepared a photothermal membrane composed of single-wall
et al.82 developed an articial phototropism (a sunower-life carbon nanotubes and MoS2 lms.39 The proposed membrane
biomimetic omnidirectional tracker, SunBOT) for omnidirec- exhibited 6.6 kg m2 h1 water evaporation rate and 106 C
tional light harvesting. The proposed SunBOT system is surface temperature, under 5 suns of irradiation.
composed of nanostructured thermal stimuli-responsive poly- Without a doubt, the overall water evaporation rate is posi-
mers and photothermal nano-agents. Similar to the biological tively correlated with the total energy received by the system.
asymmetric growth of plants under light exposure, the SunBOT With more solar energy absorbed, more thermal energy is
is able to bend towards a light source due to the asymmetric generated, resulting in a dramatically enhanced water evapo-
deformation between the illuminated high-temperature region ration rate. However, in practical conditions, integrating an
and the un-exposed low-temperature region. The tropistic optical concentrating component (US$200 per m) will be a huge
locomotion of SunBOT was further applied in a solar evapora- burden on the fabrication and maintenance costs. Hence, an
tion system. An array of SunBOTs can accurately respond and energy concentration scheme with a facile preparation process
turn toward the light source. In this case, the incident energy is highly desirable for efficient solar evaporation.
loss is hugely recovered with up to 400% enhancement in solar In order to address this challenge, Ni and co-workers
evaporation in an operation window of 164 (82 to 82 ), provided a novel strategy which can thermalize a oating
compared to a non-tropistic surface. solar receiver to 100 C in an ambient environment without
It is of great signicance to overcome the variation in solar a light concentrator.44 The typical structure of the solar evapo-
angles in practical applications. The early trials mostly relied on rator is shown in Fig. 7a, in which the photothermal material is
the structural features of solar absorbers; however, this inevi- surrounded by heat insulation layers with a middle-drilled
tably le some surfaces in shadow, which undermined the full channel. In this case, the generated heat can be localized in
potential of solar-driven evaporation. Recently, solar absorbers the conned area and concentrated for water vaporization. The
with the ability to chase and face the light source have been specic material compositions and device structure are indi-
reported. Such designs may signicantly improve the solar cated in Fig. 7b. Although the top bubble-wrap layer partially
evaporation performance by achieving maximum sunlight (20%) reduced the solar inux, the convective heat loss driven
absorption throughout the day. However, such designs are still by the solar–thermal process was also hugely diminished. As
in their infancy, and the proposed structures may be too fragile shown in Fig. 7c, under one sun illumination, a maximum
to be applied in practical situations. Hence, further improve- vapor temperature of 98 C is achieved with the thermal
ment in the structural designs of solar absorbers is required to concentration Ctherm (the ratio of the illumination area to the
achieve higher energy manipulation efficiency. evaporation area) of 1300. Such a high temperature contrib-
uted to the heat localization and thermal concentration
strategy. The practical performance of this solar vapor system
3.2 Energy concentration scheme was evaluated in an outdoor environment. As shown in Fig. 7d,
Solar–thermal technology, which converts solar energy into remarkably, even with a varying solar ux (200–1000 W m2)
thermal energy, was extensively constructed for industrial and wind speed, the solar vapor system was able to recover its
activities a few decades ago. In the typical design of a solar– peak operating temperature (>95 C) within minutes. Moreover,
thermal plant, a solar concentrator, solar energy receiver and according to the simulation results, big tolerances to the
heat-transfer uid were included. With solar tracking and properties of the top covering and solar inux were observed,
concentrating functions, the power of light energy can be making the proposed solar vapor system operable in diverse
intensied as high as 1000 fold with an operating temperature weather conditions. Generally, the strategy proposed herein
over 400 C.83 Although the conventional-thermal technology signicantly reduces the energy losses and accumulates
was only used in industrial electricity generation, the heating thermal energy for intensied vaporization, providing a new
mechanism could also have a new impact on solar vapor insight into solar energy utilization. A similar structural design
generation. with an energy concentration capability at the evaporation front
In the eld of solar vapor generation, with the enhanced has been fabricated by Guo and co-workers.25 The solar evapo-
power density of simulated solar light, a hugely improved water ration device was composed of a PVA hydrogel top layer and
evaporation rate has been achieved by interfacial systems. Zhu activated carbon paper as the photothermal bottom layer. With
and co-workers combined plasmonic nanoparticles with a tailored surface topography on the PVA layer, increased solar
carbonized wood62 to achieve highly efficient solar vapor energy was harvested and consequently generated a higher
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Fig. 7 (a) Schematic of energy flow on a solar water evaporator. (b) The components of a solar water evaporator. The performance of a solar
water evaporator in (c) indoor experiments and (d) outdoor experiments. Reproduced with permission.42 Copyright 2016, Springer Nature.
temperature for water evaporation. Strikingly, a water evapora- When the temperature of the evaporator was higher than the
tion rate of 2.6 kg m2 h1 and solar energy efficiency of 91% ambient with a high-density solar ux (0.6 sun), environmental
were achieved under only one sun irradiation. energy was no longer available to the evaporator, and hence could
not be absorbed to promote the water evaporation rate. In order
to implement this strategy under 1 sun irradiation, solar evapo-
3.3 Energy recovery from the surroundings rators with enlarged surface areas and apex angles were prepared.
In the previous sections, efforts devoted to enhancing the water As indicated in Fig. 8a, with an optimal apex angle of 22.4 , an
evaporation rate by improving solar light absorption and evaporation rate of 2.20 kg m2 h1 was accomplished under 1
applying thermal management were discussed. Those methods sun illumination. Certainly, absorbing energy from the warmer
required an elaborated surface topography81 or an enlarged environment provided a novel solution to going beyond the
evaporation area84 to accelerate the water–vapor phase transi- theoretical limits of solar-driven water evaporation.
tion. Although considerable progress has been made to mini- A similar nding was reported by Li and co-workers,86 who
mize the heat loss from the photothermal components in the fabricated a smart solar evaporator, which can absorb solar
past few years, the theoretical limit of water evaporation rate energy and gain environmental energy simultaneously. The
(based on the xed solar energy input per unit area) is a huge solar evaporation system was composed of an array of cylin-
roadblock impeding further development.34 drical columns, which were constructed from a cotton core and
In order to overcome these natural limitation, Song and co- carbon nanoparticle decorated cellulose warps. As shown in
workers discovered a new mechanism to boost water evapora- Fig. 8b and c, under simulated sunlight irradiation, the top
tion by generating cold vapor below room temperature.85 Unlike surface can efficiently absorb solar energy and generate heat;
the thermal connement strategy mentioned previously, the meanwhile, the side surfaces with a low temperature can absorb
authors actively ameliorated the effect of the heat insulator in energy from the environment. Hence, a highly enhanced water
order to enhance the heat exchange of the solar evaporator with evaporation rate was achieved by this system, far succeeding the
the ambient environment. Under low-density solar illumination corresponding theoretical limits at various light intensities.
(0.2 sun), a low surface temperature (below room temperature) Tu et al.87 prepared a plug-in-type black nylon ber (BNF)
and a high evaporation rate (higher than the theoretical limit ocking boards system with an evaporation rate of 2.09 kg m2
under the same solar input) were achieved. According to the h1 under 1 sun irradiation. With the combined effects of
authors, the increment in water evaporation originated from photothermal phenomenon and cold vapor generation, the
additional energy absorption from the warmer environment. water evaporation performance was well above the
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Fig. 8 Environmental energy-harvesting evaporators. (a) Energy flow of carbon paper on polystyrene foam under strong light illumination and
low light illumination or in darkness; the performances of the prepared solar evaporator device with unique configuration under different solar
intensities are demonstrated. Reproduced under the terms and conditions of the CC BY 4.0 License.79 Copyright 2018, Wiley-VCH. (b) The
energy flow of solar evaporation system composed of an array of cylindrical columns. (c) The temperature distribution of cylindrical evaporation
system under different light intensities. Reproduced with permission.80 Copyright 2018, Elsevier. (d) The configuration and temperature distri-
bution of a plug-in-type black nylon fiber (BNF) flocking boards system. Reproduced with permission.81 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH.
corresponding upper limit of 1.50 kg m2 h1. The previously enhancing sunlight absorbance and energy manipulation by
mentioned research work reported by Bian et al.81 also utilized _ is
architectural design. Actually, the vapour production rate (m)
this strategy, gaining energy from the environment. As shown in determined by m _ ¼ h*qsolar/Dh, where h*qsolar is the absorbed
Fig. 8d, the carbonized magnolia fruit always had a lower side solar energy and Dh corresponds to the specic enthalpy change
surface (bottom part) temperature than the surrounding envi- of liquid water to vapor. Apart from increasing the energy input
ronment under solar irradiation. Such a condition was attrib- for water evaporation, it has been found that the regulation of
uted to strong natural vapor production, which was also enthalpy is a powerful strategy to strengthen vapor production.
benecial for gaining energy from the warmer environment. The enthalpy of vaporization is the amount of energy required
Hence, an extremely high evaporation rate of 3.15 kg m2 h1 to induce the phase transition from liquid water to vapour. With
under 1 sun illumination was obtained in their work. a constant enthalpy of water evaporation (2444 J g1) and 1 sun
Although the integration of environmental energy absorp- irradiation, operating at the theoretical optimum, a conven-
tion efficiently increased the system input for vapor production tional planar solar evaporator can only generate vapour at 1.47
and generated a water evaporation rate far beyond the theo- kg m2 h1. Hence, the reduction of enthalpy is considered
retical limits, a new scientic question for cold vapor conden- a promising way to overstep the theoretical upper limit of water
sation for freshwater collection was introduced. It is evaporation.
challenging to release the thermal energy from cold vapor, when Recent advances have been reported in materials science
the temperature is below room temperature, using a conven- methods to adjust the enthalpy of water evaporation. The water
tional condensation method. Thus, there is a long way to go to state in a hydrogel network has been manipulated to affect
optimize freshwater generation by gaining environmental water evaporation. Due to the water-solubilizing groups in
energy. polymer chains, such as hydroxyl groups, amino groups,
carboxylic groups, and sulfonic acid groups, water molecules
can bond with polymers with noncovalent interactions, such as
3.4 Reduced enthalpy of evaporation
hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction.88 As reported
As mentioned in the above sections, much effort has been by Yu's group,23 three types of water states, bound water,
devoted to improving the solar evaporation rate through
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intermediate water, and free water, have been found in water- section, water transportation from bulk water to the evapora-
lled polymeric structures. Among these, intermediate water, tion surface, taking most of the thermal energy, is considered to
which exists between free and bound water, requires the least be the major heat-draining pathway. Hence, reducing the water
energy to be activated for evaporation. Hence, a photothermal convection loss is of great importance to achieving high energy
hydrogel with higher degradation of crosslinking exhibited efficiency and water evaporation rate.92,93 Furthermore, in
a strong solar evaporation effect. Specically, with the optimal continuous and long-term operation, a fact that cannot be
inner structure, a PVA hydrogel (loaded with PPy) required less ignored is that the escape of a large amount of water vapor may
energy demand for water evaporation, which was 1400 J g1. be accompanied with the accumulation of salt crystals in the
Accordingly, a record high evaporation rate of 3.2 kg m2 h1 evaporation system.62,94 The solid crystals not only clog the
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was achieved. In addition, the enthalpy can be further tailored water and vapor transportation pathways95–97 but also reect
by designing the architecture of polymer networks. According to sunlight98 and reduce the solar input, resulting in a deteriora-
Zhou et al.,89 the introduction of chitosan can further reduce the tion in freshwater productivity. Recent progress in solar water
energy demand of water evaporation, due to the co-existence of evaporation has explored various liquid manipulation schemes,
amine groups and an increased amount of intermediate water. which are feasible for limiting the heat convection loss to bulk
Hence, a water evaporation rate of 3.6 kg m2 h1 was achieved water and repelling a high concentration of salt back beneath
by a chitosan/PVA hydrogel (loaded with Pyy). Inspired by the the water body.
reduced enthalpy of chitosan/PVA hydrogel, Guan and his co-
workers164 applied bacterial cellulose (BC) to achieve a high
proportion of intermediate water. Due to the ultrane 3D 4.1 Reduced thermal loss
cellulose network of BC, 69% of intermediate water was From the structural point of view, water transportation is real-
observed in BC hydrogels, resulting in a greatly reduced ized by an individual sub-component of the solar evaporation
enthalpy of 997 J g1. Attributed to designs with reduced system. Such a component could be integrated99,100 in the
enthalpy and energy management, a water evaporation rate of system as a complete unit or fabricated as a separate part.101–103
2.9 kg m2 h1 was achieved. Under sunlight irradiation, water is efficiently drawn into the
A reduced phase transition enthalpy has also been found in photothermal area for evaporation. Inevitably, thermal energy
a surface-burnt wood sample. According to Tang et al.,90 by will ow from the high-temperature surface to the low-
regulating the hydrophilicity of surface-burnt wood and temperature water, resulting in energy transfer, which
adjusting the height of the wood above a water surface, the provides water for the liquid–gas phase transition, or causes an
enthalpy of water evaporation in wood can be reduced from unnecessary energy loss to the water body. Hence, in order to
2444 to 1769 J g1. Such an enthalpy change was mainly achieve the full potential of solar-induced thermal energy, the
attributed to the state transition of water from “gravity state” to design of water transportation is critical. Theoretically, a good
“capillary state”. In such a case, the microchannels of the wood balance between vapor production and water transportation is
were not blocked by water but were dredged with transpiration, benecial for efficient thermal energy utilization.
resulting in much more evaporation space. In addition, during 4.1.1 Manipulation of water transportation pathway.
water evaporation, vapour was formed in single molecules or Conventionally, in most cases, the water transportation
clusters consisting of a few to tens of molecules. Less energy was pathway is integrated with a thermal generating layer or self-
required for water clusters to escape from bulk water than for oating substrate.104–106 To avoid direct contact with bulk
single molecules. Hence, due to the reduced enthalpy of 1769 J water, Zhu et al.62 prepared plasmonic wood (as depicted in
g1, a high evaporation rate of 1.93 kg m2 h1 under one sun Fig. 9a) which combined the merits of photothermal nano-
irradiation was achieved by the wood-based evaporator. particles and a natural wood block for solar vapor generation.
In a real-world scenario, diffuse natural sunlight may not The internal hierarchical structure can efficiently pump water to
meet the energy requirements for efficient water evaporation. the photothermal layer through the capillary effect. Although
Hence, it is anticipated that developing new materials with a high light absorption of 98% was achieved by the plasmonic
a lower energy demand for water evaporation will be a prom- wood, 30.6 C surface temperature and less than 70% of solar
ising approach to achieve rapid solar distillation under natural energy efficiency were observed under one sun irradiation.
sunlight. Reducing the enthalpy of evaporation has, no doubt, Although carbonized biomass exhibits great promise in terms
shed new light on such a goal. of low-cost fabrication and fast production, the water trans-
ported to the photothermal layer might far outweigh the needs
for vapor production. The excess water supply might induce
4. System designs for water rapid water circulation, resulting in intensied heat exchange
transportation and heat loss. To ameliorate the heat convection to water and
simultaneously maintain a sufficient water supply for vapor
Regardless of the progress achieved in optical and thermal production, water transportation with ne manipulation is
energy management, liquid transportation91 is another impor- required.
tant issue affecting the overall solar evaporation performance. Zhao et al.23 created hierarchically nanostructured gels
Although radiant heat can be reduced through surface struc- composed of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polypyrrole (PPy) to
tural designs and temperature control, as mentioned in the last investigate and pursue an optimal water transportation scheme.
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Fig. 9 Water transportation manipulated by: (a) plasmonic wood. Reproduced with permission.56 Copyright 2018. Wiley-VCH. (b) Hierarchical
PVA-based gel. Reproduced with permission.23 Copyright 2018. Springer Nature. (c) Hierarchical PAAm-based aerogel. Reproduced with
permission.98 Copyright 2019. American Chemical Society. (d) Reversed cone-shaped structures. Reproduced with permission.29 Copyright
2020. Springer Nature.
With varying weight ratios of PPy, PVA, and water, the inner the peristome surface of a pitcher plant, Wu et al.29 designed
structure of the gel device changed dramatically, which was and fabricated a reverse cone-shaped solar evaporator with
critical for efficient water replenishment. With the optimized asymmetric grooves and microcavity arrays on the surface.
gel inner structure, composed of internal gaps, micron chan- Owing to the unique surface design, water was able to move
nels, and molecular meshes (as shown in Fig. 9b), a remarkable upwardly and spread perpendicularly on the device in a mere
water evaporation rate of 3.2 kg m2 h1 under 1 sun illumi- 100 ms. Consequently, a water lm with inhomogeneous
nation was achieved. In addition, the simulation results thickness along the sidewall was formed, with an apex liquid
demonstrated similar water ow speed across the hierarchical lm thickness of 15 mm and a bottom liquid lm thickness of
gel, with 0.9 mm s1 of bottom water replenishment lost 0.89 mm 1500 mm. The much thinner liquid lm on the apex had
s1 of top surface water. In this case, an energy efficiency of 94% a higher tendency to vaporize than the bottom liquid layer,
was achieved. Moreover, besides the efficient water replenish- resulting in a water evaporation rate of 0.84 kg m2 h1 even
ment, such a remarkable water evaporation rate might also be without solar ux. The position-dependent temperature distri-
attributed to the reduced vaporization enthalpy of water bution was another issue to assist the water evaporation. As
conned in gel meshes. A similar hierarchical structure was shown in Fig. 9d, the surface temperature of the evaporator
accomplished by Xu et al.,107 who were inspired by conifer decreased with increasing elevation. Such a temperature
tracheid construction and fabricated an efficient water trans- difference could induce a thermocapillary effect to drive the
portation and evaporation system with a polyacrylamide water upward from the bulk water. With the special water
(PAAm)-based aerogel. With a well-dened inner structure, transportation effect and efficient energy utilization on the 3D
composed of radially aligned channels, micro pores, and evaporator, a water evaporation rate of 2.63 kg m2 h1 was
molecular meshes, long-distance (>28 cm at 190 min) and rapid achieved under 1 sun illumination.
(>1 cm at 1 s and >9 cm at 300 s) antigravity water transportation 4.1.2 Reduced water contact area. Apart from manipulating
was achieved in this work (as shown in Fig. 9c), regardless of the water transportation pathway, reducing the water contact
whether it was clean water, seawater, sandy groundwater, or area has been proved to be effective in reducing thermal
dye-including effluent. Based on the efficient water trans- loss.108,109 To narrow down the water transportation pathway, Ni
portation sub-component, accompanied by a carbon heat and co-workers14 created a oating multi-layer solar evaporation
collector on the top, a solar vapor generation rate of 2.0 kg m2 device, composed of solar absorbing fabric as the photothermal
h1 and energy utilization efficiency of 85.7% were realized layer, expanded polystyrene foam as the oating insulator, and
under 1 sun illumination. The impressive water extraction white cellulose fabric as the water transportation pathway (as
speed exhibited great promise on a broad range of occasions shown in Fig. 10a). The expanded polystyrene with low thermal
and might be benecial for future solar vapor generation with conductivity (0.02 W m1 K1) could limit thermal conduc-
a reduced water contact area. tion, whereas the hydrophilic white fabric wick with high
Apart from reducing the thermal loss, the scheme of water thermal conductivity (0.58 W m1 K1) could leak heat. Thus, in
transportation could also play a positive role in enhancing order to localize thermal energy in a conned area with efficient
vapor generation. Inspired by the super liquid transportation water replenishment, a 20% wicking area and 80% insulation
property of the asymmetric capillary ratchet of a bird's beak and
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Fig. 10 Solar evaporator with reduced water contact area. (a) A floating multilayer solar evaporation device. Reproduced with permission.14
Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry. (b) A jellyfish-like solar vapor evaporator. Reproduced with permission.27 Copyright 2017, Elsevier. (c)
A MOF-based hierarchical system. Reproduced with permission.101 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. (d) A (BNF) flocking board. Reproduced with
permission.81 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. (e) A hydrophilic/hydrophobic nanoporous double-layer structure. Reproduced with permission.41
Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry.
area were proposed and resulted in 11% energy loss by the water However, this strategy may not be appropriate for large-scale
transportation process. operation and runs a high risk of increasing the maintenance
The water contact area was reduced by structural design. For costs and reducing productivity in the long run. Therefore, solar
example, Li and co-workers27 designed a jellysh-like solar vapor evaporators with self-cleaning properties are highly
vapor evaporator with a restrained water transportation desirable.14,18,29,112 In recent years, in order to address this
pathway. As shown in Fig. 10b, due to the structural design, challenge, several novel strategies have been proposed,
efficient water replenishment in the aligned GO pillars sup- including (1) multidirectional mass transfer; (2) Janus structure
pressed heat dissipation through water convection. As a result, designs for brine separation; and (3) localized salt crystalliza-
an impressive energy utilization efficiency of 87.5% under 1 sun tion. To some extent, these methods have achieved efficient
illumination was achieved. In another example, Ma and co- anti-salt clogging and maintained solar evaporation functions
workers110 prepared a MOF-based hierarchical system with two in long-term operation.
side ‘legs’ in the liquid to demonstrate the water evaporation 4.2.1 Multidirectional mass transfer. Ni et al.14 fabricated
process (as shown in Fig. 10c). Owing to the superior hydro- a salt-rejecting evaporation structure with a multilayer cong-
philic feature of the MOF system, water can be efficiently uration. Using the assumption of diffusion, an area ratio of 1 to
transported to the photothermal layer and the surface temper- 4 between the wicking area and the insulation area was chosen
ature cooled from 56 C to 31 C in 60 s, giving a nal water based on the daily mass of salt to be rejected. As shown in
evaporation rate of 1.50 kg m2 h1. A one-dimensional water Fig. 11a and b, under 1 sun illumination, the evaporation
pathway was integrated in a solar evaporator by Yang et al.,43 as structure was capable of dissolving 40 grams of additional solid
shown in Fig. 10e. Due to the reduced contact area toward salts on the photothermal surface into the brine water under-
water, 86.6% of solar energy was utilized for vapor generation neath, leading to an increase in brine concentration from
with a water evaporation rate of 1.657 kg m2 h1. To further 3.5 wt% to 26 wt%. Although remarkable salt rejection has been
narrow down the water contact area, Tu et al.87 fabricated accomplished by this device, the overall solar energy utilization
a black nylon ber (BNF) ocking board with a water- was 56%, resulting from thermal convection loss and light
introducing hole (5 mm 5 mm) in the middle (as shown in reective dissipation.
Fig. 10d). Owing to the strong capillary effect, a maximum Kuang and co-workers18 reported a self-regenerating solar
radius of the wetted area of 13.2 cm was observed under 1 sun evaporator with excellent antifouling features using a rationally
illumination. Moreover, the corresponding thermal loss driven designed articial channel-array in natural wood for long-term
by the water convection was even lower than that of air solar vapor generation. As shown in Fig. 11c, under sunlight
convection. illumination, salt concentration gradients were formed between
micro-sized natural wood channels and milli-sized drilled
channels due to their individual hydraulic conductivities.
4.2 Anti-salt clogging Owing to the hierarchical structure, a mass transfer of salt
Conventionally, the salt crystals can be removed by simply occurred due to the concentration gradients between the two
cooling and washing the solar evaporator several times.111 types of channels via the 1–2 mm pits on the sidewall, resulting
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Fig. 11 Structural designs for surface salt rejection. (a and b) A schematic illustration and performance of a floating multilayer solar evaporation
structure for surface rejection. Reproduced with permission.14 Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry. A schematic illustration of multi-
directional mass transfer of accumulated salts by (c) drilled carbonized wood. Reproduced with permission.18 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. (d)
Artificial composite fabric. Reproduced with permission.104 Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry.
in reduced salt accumulation in the system. In addition, the 4.2.2 Janus structure designs for brine separation. To avoid
drilled channels with high hydraulic conductivities possessed salt crystallization in a solar evaporation device aer water
a high potential to exchange with bulk water and functioned as evaporation, Zhao et al.38 proposed a hydrophobic MXene
salt-rejection pathways. Due to the smart structural designs, membrane to counter liquid inltration. The non-wettable
a solar energy efficiency of 75% and long-term functional surface efficiently blocked the brine water underneath and let
stability were achieved. Similar work by He et al.28 applied the generated vapor escape through the surface gap. Long-term
carbonized balsa wood as the bimodal solar evaporation device. stable solar vapor generation was ensured under 1 sun illumi-
Taking advantage of the hierarchical and interconnected nation over 200 h without any noticeable solid deposition.
microstructures of balsa wood, which consisted of large vessel However, the strong hydrophobicity may also affect the water
channels (180 to 390 mm) and narrow tracheid channels (18 to supply, and resulted in a solar evaporation rate of 1.31 kg m2
39 mm) and micro-sized pits (1 to 2 mm) and nanopores on the h1 with a solar vapor conversion efficiency of 71%. To address
walls of the microchannels, rapid brine water replenishment this drawback, Yang et al.43 further modied the membrane
and efficient salt rejection were achieved due to the capillary conguration and designed a Janus hydrophilic/hydrophobic
effect and the concentration gradient. However, although the double layer for efficient long-term water desalination. The
carbonized balsa wood demonstrated efficient salt rejection hydrophobic salt-resistant layer of well-dened nanoparticle
properties, the solar evaporation rate of 0.8 kg m2 h1 and arrays served as a photothermal layer and vapor pathway, while
energy utilization efficiency of 57% appeared to be insufficient the hydrophilic ler membrane served as the brine water
under 1 sun illumination. replenishment pathway. As shown in Fig. 12a, in the Janus
Wang et al.113 applied the difference in hydraulic conduc- conguration, water cannot immerse the photothermal layer;
tivities in an articial solar evaporation system to achieve an thus the process of concentrating brine only occurs beneath the
efficient anti-salt function. With blank hollow spacer fabric as hydrophobic layer. In contrast, the all-hydrophilic membrane
the template, chitosan as the ller and reduced graphene oxide can be immersed in brine water and precipitates solid salt
as the surface coating, a salt-resistant solar absorber was crystals as the water evaporates. The salt-rejection properties of
fabricated. As shown in Fig. 11d, due to the aligned big channel the Janus and all-hydrophilic systems were further compared by
array (2 mm) inside the absorber, an efficient salt–liquid illumination with sunlight for a continuous 10 hours. A layer of
exchange between the porous ber cluster and the big channel salt crystals appeared on the all-hydrophilic systems while the
occurred, resulting in a continuously reducing salt accumula- Janus system remained clean and dry. Due to the salt-resistant
tion. Moreover, due to the porous textile fabric structure, good feature of the Janus double layer and reduced thermal loss in
photothermal conversion and limited thermal conductivity of this work, stable and efficient solar generation was accom-
the solar absorber, an efficient energy utilization of 86% with an plished with an evaporation rate of 1.657 kg m2 h1, solar
evaporation rate of 1.4352 kg m2 h1 was achieved under 1 sun energy efficiency of 86.6%, and long-term stability over 15 days.
illumination. Almost at the same time, Xu and co-workers114 proposed
a exible Janus absorber composed of an upper hydrophobic
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Fig. 12 (a) A schematic illustration of the Janus membrane and hydrophilic membrane for salt-rejection. Reproduced with permission.41
Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry. (b) A schematic illustration of the Janus MXene aerogel with well-ordered vertical porous channels
for highly efficient long-term solar water evaporation. Reproduced with permission.106 Copyright 2019, American Chemical Society.
photothermal layer and a bottom hydrophilic water-supply layer light absorption, and vapor escape. With an optimized channel
for long-term solar evaporation. Under sunlight illumination, diameter of 15 mm, a water transport rate of 0.54 g min1 was
the upper layer can efficiently convert solar energy into heat for achieved that laid a solid foundation for brine replenishment
water evaporation while blocking the salt deposition under- and salt dissolution. In addition, with a structure thickness of
neath. Hence, the salt deposited in the hydrophilic layer can 10 mm, a good balance between thermal localization and vapor
rapidly be dissolved due to the continuous water pumping. efficiency was achieved, resulting in a water evaporation rate of
Under 1 sun illumination, an evaporation rate of 1.3 kg m2 h1 1.46 kg m2 h1 and solar energy efficiency of 87%. Further-
and solar energy efficiency of 72% were accomplished by the more, due to the intact structure of the Janus aerogel, a nearly
Janus system. In addition, the performance of solar vapor constant water yield was maintained for 15 days.
generation was sustained over 16 days, and indicated excellent 4.2.3 Localized salt crystallization. Previous efforts have
salt rejection properties and strong structural durability. been devoted to reducing the salt concentration inside the solar
Although salt-resistance was achieved using the Janus evaporation system and hence preserve the vapor generation
system, the relatively low energy utilization efficiency remained performance in long-term operation. In contrast, the localized
a major drawback due to the thermal convection loss to bulk salt crystallization method offers a new strategy for maintaining
water. Although external water pumping components have been continuous vapor production while harvesting the solid salts
proposed to ameliorate this issue, the structural durability from seawater. Xia et al.17 designed and fabricated a disc-shaped
problem may cause new concerns. To address these challenges, solar vapor generator that achieved vapor generation and solid
Zhang et al.115 designed a vertically aligned Janus MXene aerogel salt harvesting at the same time. As shown in Fig. 13a and b, the
with well-ordered vertical porous channels, selected channel brine water can be efficiently pumped to the evaporation surface
diameters and structure thickness to perform efficient long- and diffused in a radial manner. Under sunlight illumination,
term solar vapor generation (as shown in Fig. 12b). Compared salt crystallized at the edge location as water evaporated.
with irregular porous channels, the well-aligned porous chan- Fig. 13c clearly indicates the salt mass distribution on the
nels exhibited a competitive advantage in water transportation, evaporator. Moreover, due to the edge-preferential
Fig. 13 Schematic illustration of (a) edge-preferential salt crystallization and (b) brine water transportation. (c) The mass fraction of salt on the
evaporation disc. Reproduced with permission.17 Copyright 2019, Royal Society of Chemistry. (d) The localized salt crystallization of reversed
cone-shaped solar evaporator at different time points. (e) Solid salt collection by an array of solar evaporators. Reproduced with permission.29
Copyright 2020, Nature Springer.
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crystallization property, the solar evaporation performance tiled roof and nally drips into a reservoir through gravity.119–121
remained nearly constant for over 600 h of operation. However, a huge discrepancy has been found between the solar-
Another localized salt crystallization strategy was proposed driven vapor generation rate and freshwater collection
by Wu et al.,29 who designed a reversed cone-shaped solar rate.23,122,123 Table 1 summarizes the vapor/water production rate
evaporator with a bio-mimetic surface structure. As mentioned of systems with condensation systems. However, the conven-
in Section 4.1.1, the super liquid transportation properties of tional condensation setup of a transparent tiled roof could only
the solar evaporator and reversed surface temperature gradient contribute to a low water/vapor ratio (dened as the ratio of the
can efficiently transport water from the bottom site to the apex, mass of distillate to the mass of input steam). The big difference
resulting in strong vapor production on the top. Consequently, in vapor and water production can be ascribed to the optical
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salt crystallized at the apex with growing diameter as water impedance by the condensed water, absorption of sunlight by the
evaporated, as shown in Fig. 12d. In addition, even though solid inner vapor, and increased internal humidity as water evapo-
salt crystals capped the apex, the solar vapor generation rated. Therefore, creating and developing innovative designs with
remained nearly unchanged, due to the vapor escape channel in efficient gas–liquid transition effects and water collection rate are
the salt crystals. The larger scale salt harvesting and water of paramount importance to unleashing the full potential of
evaporation are shown in Fig. 13e. Taking advantage of water solar-driven freshwater production.
transportation, efficient energy management, and localized salt
crystallization, a solar-driven water evaporation rate of 2.63 kg 5.1 Modication of the condensation cover
m2 h1 with an energy efficiency of >96% was realized by this
As the place where the condensate is generated, there is no doubt
evaporator under one sun illumination. Such a unique struc-
that the physical properties and installation parameters of the
tural design offered new insight into long-term water evapora-
condensation surface have signicant impacts on water produc-
tion and reuse of sea salt harvesting.
tion. In previous research studies on solar stills, scientists have
extensively investigated the properties of the condensation
5. System designs for enhanced surface, including the type of material, surface roughness,
water yield installation inclination, shape, transmittance, and wiping and
vibration of the condensing surface.21 However, in order to achieve
Water collection is the last but most important step in solar vapor abundant freshwater production, the decisive factor is whether
generation, considering the ultimate goal of freshwater produc- the condensation surface can maintain a continuous high solar
tion. However, previous efforts in this eld have mainly focused ux. A series of plastic materials, such as acrylic,130 PET,21 poly-
on efficient vapor generation with comprehensive energy esters,14 and PMMA,131 with high solar transmittance, light weight,
management,116–118 and very much less attention has been paid to and low cost, have been applied in solar vapor generators. During
the water collection process. For a typical water collection system, solar water evaporation, liquid water was formed on the bottom
the generated vapor is condensed into water on the transparent surface of the transparent cover. As shown in Fig. 14a, the
Table 1 The water yield of solar-driven evaporation with condensation systems
Condensation Light intensity Water evaporation Water production Water/vapor
scheme Solar absorber (kW m2) rate (kg m2 h1) rate (kg m2 h1) ratio (%) Ref.
Tiled roof Carbon sponge Natural sunlight 1.15 0.35 30.43 100
Graphene assembly 1 2.1 0.8 38 124
framework
PVA–rGO hydrogel 1 2.5 1.3 52 40
Cu2SnSe3/Cu2ZnSnSe4 lm 1 1.657 0.889 53.65 43
CNT-coated conical structure 1 2.63 1.72 65.40 29
Polypyrrole-modied maize straw 1 3.0 2.2 73.33 125
Commercial fabric and polystyrene Natural sunlight Not mentioned 2.5 L per m2 per day N/A 14
foam
Reduced graphene oxide/cotton 1/natural sunlight 1.47 4 L per m2 per day N/A 126
fabric
PPy functionalized paper 1/natural sunlight 2.99 6.9 L per m2 per day N/A 15
Defect-abundant graphene 1/natural sunlight 1.78 9.52 L per m2 per day N/A 127
aerogel
AIE/all-ber aerogel 1/natural sunlight 1.43 10.9 L per m2 per day N/A 128
PVA–PPy hydrogel 1/natural sunlight 3.2 18–23 L per m2 per day N/A 23
Vapor PVA–Ti2O3 hydrogel 1 3.6 1.3–3 36.11–83.33 19
manipulation Polypyrrole (PPy) Origami Rose 1 1.72–2.25 1.52–2.11 88.37–93.77 77
Latent heat Two-stage solar distiller 1 0.98 1.02 1.04 129
recovery Multi-stage solar distiller 1 — 3 N/A 26
Multi-stage solar distiller 1 5.78 4.34 75.08 13
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Fig. 14 (a) The transparency of glass and PET condensation covers during solar evaporation. Reproduced with permission.21 Copyright 2013,
Elsevier. (b) The effect of condensation surface on the water collection rate. Reproduced with permission.22 Copyright 2015, Elsevier.
hydrophobic nature of PET plastic would signicantly reduce the facilitate vapor production and thereby strengthen condensa-
light transmittance due to surface-dangling water droplets. In tion, it is necessary to reduce the vapor pressure and drive the
contrast, for hydrophilic glass,132 although it is heavy, brittle, and phase transition direction. It has been proved that wind can
has higher production costs, the continuous excellent light accelerate water vapor generation due to the induced surface
transmittance may result in a nearly 30% enhanced water collec- negative pressure. Liu et al.20 have studied the effect of wind-
tion rate. Therefore, it is urgent to discover or develop an alter- driven negative pressure on vapor generation. With a geo-
native material for the condensation surface with a hydrophilic polymer–biomass mesoporous carbon composite as the solar
nature, high transparency, light weight, and low fabrication costs. absorber, the vapor production rate was examined under 1 sun
The productivity of freshwater from a solar evaporation illumination at different wind speeds. Water evaporation rates
device is also inuenced by the temperature difference between of 2.85, 5.90, and 7.55 kg m2 h1 were obtained under 1 sun
the condensation surface and the inner vapor. It has been found illumination at wind speeds of 1, 2, 3 m s1, respectively. Such
that with an increasing temperature discrepancy across the values far exceed that of the natural water evaporation rate
condensation surface, higher water production was achieved.48 (0.502 kg m2 h1), indicating that an increase in wind speed
Therefore, in order to improve the productivity, various cooling can efficiently promote the water evaporation rate. A saturated
methods, including external water ows,133,134 external air evaporation rate was obtained at high wind speed and under
ows,135 and enlarged condensation surfaces22 have been re- a strong solar ux due to the limitation in water transportation
ported. Inside the solar water evaporation system, the circula- underneath. Although an efficient strategy to enhance the water
tion of air mass was increased by keeping up the temperature evaporation rate was offered by the authors, a freshwater
discrepancy between the solar absorber and the condensation collection experiment was not mentioned.
cover. With a reduction in glass cover temperature in the range Zhang et al.136 designed and fabricated a simple all-in-one
of 6–20 C, an improvement in water productivity of 20% has solar distillation device for practical seawater desalination. As
been achieved in an outdoor experiment. However, cooling the shown in Fig. 15a, the device is composed of two chambers: an
condensation cover by a owing water lm or air requires evaporation chamber and a condensing chamber. Under
additional energy input, which signicantly undermines the sunlight exposure, the generated vapor was guided to the
sustainable and economical nature of solar evaporation. In condensing chamber by a solar-powered electrical fan. Due to
contrast, increasing the temperature difference by enlarging the the enhanced circulation of the air mass and air-cooled evapo-
condensation area is an attractive strategy to enhance the ration surface, a water production rate of 0.15 kg m2 h1 was
freshwater production rate. Bhardwaj et al.,22 provided a exible obtained, which was 15 times higher than that from natural
and reliable way to enhance freshwater production by enlarging evaporation. Although the water production rate in this work
the condensation area. As shown in Fig. 14b, with additional was not promising due to the absence of a thermal management
channels integrated on the evaporation cover, an increased scheme, the demonstrated concept provided a direction for
amount of vapor was recovered for condensation. To a certain vapor manipulation in the early stages of this eld.
extent, the additional channels can be seen as air-ow A more sophisticated solar evaporation system was reported
condensers, which exacerbate the temperature difference by Guo et al.19 They fabricated a light-absorbing sponge-like
across the condensation cover and improve the water produc- hydrogel composed of Ti2O3 nanoparticles and a PVA chain
tivity. According to the authors, the production of water from for highly efficient water evaporation. Due to the energy nano-
the evaporation system was enhanced by over ve fold by connement and water activation effects, a record high vapor
increasing the condensation area from 0.08 to 0.52 m2. generation rate of up to 3.6 kg m2 h1 was obtained under 1
sun irradiation in an open system. However, the intrinsic water
5.2 Manipulation of vapor pressure production rate of this system was 1.3 kg m2 h1, due to the
rapidly saturated relative humidity, which signicantly inhibi-
In a closed system, evaporation and condensation occur
ted the vapor production from the hydrogel system. To
reversibly, following the equation H2O (l) 4 H2O (g). In order to
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Fig. 15 Schematic illustration of water collection by vapor manipulation by (a) a simple and all-in-one solar distillation device. Reproduced with
permission.127 Copyright 2015, Wiley-VCH. (b) A light-absorbing sponge-like hydrogel with air flow. Reproduced with permission.19 Copyright
2019, American Chemical Society. (c) A low-pressure solar steaming-collection unisystem. (d) The performance of vapor and water production
under different inner pressures. Reproduced with permission.77 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH.
overcome this obstacle, airow was introduced to transport the utilization of the latent heat could greatly enhance the fresh-
generated vapor from the evaporation chamber to the conden- water productivity.137 However, it seems impossible to harvest
sation chamber to reduce the vapor pressure (as shown in the dissipated latent heat by the typical conguration of a solar-
Fig. 15b). With the aid of a pump, as the speed of the air ow driven evaporation system. A photothermal membrane distil-
increased from 0, to 10, and to 40 ml min1, the water delivery lation (PMD) system, with a reversed conguration of feed water
rate increased from 1.3, to 2.2, and 3 kg m2 h1, respec- and generated vapor, exhibited great potential to recover latent
tively. The enhanced water production rate was attributed to the heat. PMD is a thermally activated separation process in which
reduced humidity induced by the negative pressure. Similar the separation is driven by a phase transition. A hydrophobic
work was reported by Li et al.,77 who utilized a low-pressure solar membrane/layer is applied to inhibit water transportation but
steaming-collection unisystem to reduce the vapor pressure allows only vapour to pass through it. Such a process is driven
inside the evaporation system (Fig. 15c). As shown in Fig. 15d, by a partial vapour pressure difference across the hydrophobic
under a reduced pressure of 0.17 atm, the water evaporation layer along with solar-to-thermal generation. In the typical
rate and water collection rate were hugely promoted from 1.72 conguration of a PMD system, the feed side of the liquid water
to 2.25 kg m2 h1 and from 1.52 to 2.11 kg m2 h1, respec- source is located on the hydrophobic membrane, while the
tively, compared to ambient pressure. vapor is condensed on the opposite side aer penetrating the
Although the water production rate was signicantly membrane. Compared to a solar-driven evaporation scheme,
enhanced by reducing the vapor pressure, the energy PMD may also have natural advantages in salt rejection and
consumption in this system was not mentioned, and thus the anti-fouling.
capability of the device for freshwater production cannot be Hence, Xue et al.129 rst proposed a compact solar–thermal
fully evaluated. As claimed by Li et al.,77 such a design may be membrane distillation system with the features of localized
appropriate for portable application in an emergency. For large- solar–thermal heating, effective cooling, and latent heat
scale solar water evaporation, novel designs with efficient vapor recovery. The evaporation system was composed of a commer-
manipulation are urgently needed for sustainable and cial solar absorber (Bluetec, Germen) for heat generation, a PVA
economically efficient freshwater production. sponge for seawater transportation, hydrophobic membranes
for antifouling, and two metal collectors for vapor condensa-
5.3 Latent heat recovery tion. As shown in Fig. 16a, with solar light as the only energy
input, water evaporation and condensation occur sequentially
When condensing water vapor with a transparent cover, a large
in Collector 1 and Collector 2, which indicates reutilization of
amount of latent heat is discharged into the ambient. Such
the latent heat. The temperatures of the internal vapor and
a process occurs regardless of the sunlight absorption capability
water collector in the two stages are shown in Fig. 16b, which
of solar absorbers and the comprehensive thermal insulation
provided good evidence for energy propagation and recycling.
schemes used for water evaporation. Further recovery and
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Fig. 16 Water yield enhancement by latent heat recovery. (a) A schematic illustration of a two-stage latent heat recovery device. Reproduced
with permission.123 Copyright 2018, Wiley-VCH. (b) A schematic illustration of a multiple-stage latent heat recovery device. Reproduced with
permission.26 Copyright 2018, Nature Springer. (c) A schematic illustration of another multiple-stage latent heat recovery system and the detailed
device configuration. Reproduced with permission.13 Copyright 2020, Royal Society of Chemistry.
Owing to the novel energy management strategy, a water Xu and co-workers13 further elaborated the designs of the
collection rate of 1.02 kg m2 h1 with a solar efficiency of 72% multistage architecture by adjusting the structural parameters
was obtained under 1 sun illumination, whereas a vapor with simulation outcomes. As shown in Fig. 16c, the multistage
generation rate of 0.98% m2 h1 was achieved in the open architecture is composed of a solar absorbing stage and
system. numbers of evaporation/air/condensation stages. The width of
A similar but more elaborate system was proposed by Chia- the device a, the air gap distance b between the evaporation and
vazzo et al.26 They designed and fabricated a passive multistage condensation membranes, and the total number of stages n
and low-cost solar distiller to recover the phase transition latent were proved to be of great signicance in water and vapor
heat for enhancing the freshwater yield. Each unit stage for transportation and thermal energy dissipation. In order to
distillation was composed of two hydrophilic layers and an maximize practicability, a trade-off between theoretical perfor-
intermediate hydrophobic microporous layer. As the heat- mance and practical limitations was made, which resulted in
induced vapor was generated from the rst hydrophilic layer a conguration of a ¼ 10 cm, b ¼ 2.5 mm and n ¼ 10. Even-
and condensed in the second hydrophilic layer, the latent heat tually, the designed multistage solar distiller exhibited a record-
was recovered as the secondary thermal source to activate high freshwater production rate of 5.78 L m2 h1 with a solar-
another around of vaporization in devices with a multilayer to-vapor conversion efficiency of 385% under 1 sun illumina-
conguration. Hence, the dependence of water productivity on tion, which evidenced efficient latent heat recycling and reuti-
the number of stages was conrmed. Specically, the 3- and 10- lization. However, the single-stage conguration only gave
stage congurations exhibited threefold and six-fold higher water a water production rate of 1.21 L m2 h1 with a solar-to-vapor
productivity than the single-stage conguration in laboratory conversion efficiency of 81%, under 1 sun illumination. In
experiments. Owing to the latent heat recovery strategy, an general, the latent heat recovery strategy leads to totally
impressive water collection rate of 3 L m2 h1 was accomplished different system congurations to the interfacial solar evapo-
by the 10-stage conguration device under 1 sun illumination. ration models, however, with remarkably high energy
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reutilization. The signicance of the multistage device is that it potential in freshwater production for their unlimited energy
is more than a novel way to improve freshwater productivity, but and water resources,144 minor environmental impact, and long-
more importantly, it sheds new light on the solar water evapo- term and automatic operation. Compared to current
ration eld and provides a steady step up for future membrane-ltering technologies, solar-driven evaporation is
commercialization. less susceptible to the quantity and quality of the water source
and is thus capable of producing clean water from diverse
situations, including seawater,145 household sewage, and
6. Recent progress in applications industrial wastewater146 in a cost-efficient way. However,
conventional solar-driven water production solutions suffer
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With the ever-deepening research into solar-driven vapor
from low energy utilization efficiency147 and high capital
generation, various novel solar-absorbing materials, compre-
construction costs,83,148 which have signicantly impeded their
hensive structural designs, and sophisticated energy manage-
development and practical applications.
ment schemes have been proposed to bring the solar
In the past few years, due to drastic changes in the mindset
evaporation devices to maturity and promote system perfor-
of energy utilization, from volumetric bulk heating,149,150 to
mance, which have laid a solid foundation for future applica-
interfacial heating,151 and to isolation localized heating,29 the
tions. Despite its nature of energy sustainability and
energy efficiency of solar-still-type systems has increased
environmental friendliness, solar vapor generation still suffers
dramatically and provided a steady step up for future practical
unignorable limitations and drawbacks in its current stage,
applications.10 Currently, numerous solar-evaporation devices
such as low freshwater productivity, large footprint require-
with enhanced solar evaporation efficiency, salt rejection
ments, and weather-dependent performance. Nevertheless, in
property, miniaturized structures, and affordable costs have
recent years, scientists have put forward many profound and
been reported. For example, Zhou et al.40 demonstrated
interesting ideas based on mass and energy transfer and
a hydrogel-based solar evaporator with a high energy efficiency
transformation within solar evaporation, including seawater
of 95% under one sun for solar desalination (Fig. 17a). The
desalination,138–140 sewage purication,84,141,142 and even elec-
solar evaporation hydrogel was prepared by in situ gelation of
tricity generation.112,143 To some extent, these ideas play
polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with a loading of reduced graphene
a guiding role leading to future solar-evaporation-based appli-
oxide (rGO). Upon sunlight irradiation, the internal PVA
cations and enriching their development possibilities. In this
hydrogel network can efficiently transport water and conne the
section, we review cutting-edge solar evaporation applications
thermal energy generated by the embedded rGO, enabling
and discuss the underlying mechanism and application
a steady water production rate of 1.3 kg m2 h1 under one
potentials.
sun illumination in a closed system. The desalination effect of
the solar evaporation device was further examined by testing
6.1 Seawater desalination a real seawater sample (from the Gulf of Mexico) and three
Considering the ultimate goal of alleviating water scarcity, articial seawater samples with representative salinities from
solar-driven water treatment methods have exhibited great the Baltic Sea (0.8 wt%), the World Ocean (3.5 wt%), and the
Fig. 17 A schematic illustration of (a) hydrogel-based seawater purification. (b) The ion concentration before and after desalination. Reproduced
with permission.38 Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry. (c) An illustration of the fabrication costs of a floating solar still. Reproduced with
permission.14 Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry. A schematic illustration of (d) marine agriculture accomplished by a floating trans-
parent device. (e) The freshwater production process. Reproduced with permission.138 Copyright 2018, Elsevier.
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Dead Sea (10 wt%). As shown in Fig. 17b, the concentration of a oating transparent device with multiple horizontal grooves
primary ions was measured by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) and a special interior structure. As shown in Fig. 17d and e, the
spectrometry and the results indicate that the salinity of the parabolic-shaped surface can efficiently concentrate solar light
condensed water is nearly four orders of magnitude lower than to thermalize the seawater absorbing material for water evapo-
the initial solution, and two orders of magnitude lower than the ration and the side chamber can condense the hot vapor to
drinking water standards dened by the World Health Organi- generate freshwater for crop irrigation. Under 1000 W m2
zation (WHO, 1&) and the US Environmental Protection Agency irradiation, the water production rate of the proposed oating
(EPA, 0.5&). In addition, the functional stabilities of the device device was calculated as 195.1 g m2 h1 with an energy effi-
were veried under 1 sun illumination for over 96 continuous ciency of 16.5%. The performance of the water production rate
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hours without noticeable change, indicating its excellent dura- was relatively low, possibly due to the absence of a thermal
bility for long-term practical applications. energy management scheme. However, the concept proposed by
The unit cost of water production is another important issue Zhang et al. may enrich the possibility of applications based on
in solar-driven seawater desalination. Ni et al.14 reported solar-driven desalination.
a oating multilayer solar evaporation structure for practical
solar desalination. The exible assembly materials made this 6.2 Sewage purication
system easily deployed for desalination in off-grid and remote Although the ocean possesses the most abundant water
areas. In an outdoor experiment, a oating solar still on the resource for freshwater generation, in daily life, household
ocean (Pleasure Bay, Boston, USA) could produce freshwater at sewage and industrial wastewater have a more intimate rela-
2.5 L per m2 per day with solar-to-water efficiency of 22%, which tionship with human activities. Various contaminants,
was enough to satisfy daily individual drinking needs. As shown including heavy metal ions,146 organic compounds,153 oil and
in Fig. 17c, the cost of materials of the entire solar evaporation grease,110 and bacteria154 in wastewater exhibit severe toxicity
system was $3 per m2, which was 10–100 times lower than not only to living species but also to the environment. In this
current solar still systems. Moreover, with an estimated life age, how to recycle and revitalize a clean water resource from
cycle of 2 years, the unit cost of water production was nearly $1.5 contaminated water is of wide concern. Currently, solar water
per m3, 10 times lower than that of conventional solar still evaporation may provide an effective solution to deal with this
devices. Although current plant-based membrane-ltering issue by separating and condensing the water vapor under
water desalination had a lower unit cost ($0.5 per m3), high sunlight illumination.
capital funding inhibited its operation in remote water-stressed Based on the promising solar–thermal response of graphene,
and disaster-stricken communities. Zhang et al.124 fabricated a housing self-supply water system
Beyond purifying seawater for drinking, solar water evapo- with a highly vertically ordered pillar array framework (HOPGF).
ration could also shed new light on the development of marine With well-dened structures, a solar vapor generation rate of
agriculture. Wang and co-workers152 designed and fabricated 2.10 kg m2 h1 with an energy efficiency of 95% was achieved
Fig. 18 (a) The prototype model of a housing self-supply water system. (b) The intensity of solar flux at different time points and (c) the cor-
responding water evaporation rate. Reproduced with permission.141 Copyright 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry. (d) The performance of water
evaporation in strong acid and alkali. (e) A comparison of the rejection of heavy metals by a hydrogel system with other commercial approaches.
Reproduced with permission.142 Copyright 2019, American Association for the Advancement of Science. (f) Water contact angle analysis indi-
cated that a MOF-based evaporator exhibited a strong hydrophilic property. (g) The water evaporation rate of the MOF-based evaporator in oil-
containing wastewater. Reproduced with permission.101 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. (h) A schematic illustration of solar–thermal based
decontamination with evaporation-enhanced physical adsorption and photocatalytic degradation. (i) The performance of the photocatalytic
degradation of RhB with solar evaporators of different configurations. (j) The water evaporation rate of solar evaporators with different
configurations. Reproduced with permission.139 Copyright 2016, American Chemical Society.
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under 1 sun illumination in an open system. The HOPGF was accumulation, a highly efficient photodegradation of rhoda-
rstly examined for purifying seawater and raw pharmaceutical mine B (RhB) in water was accomplished by the embedded TiO2
wastewater (acid, alkaline, and neutral solutions) and the nanoparticles. As shown in Fig. 18i and j, over 95% of the RhB in
collected puried water was measured with neutral pH and low the solution was removed by the composite paper under solar
conductivity. Based on the capabilities of HOPGF, the authors illumination for 2 h and the integration of photocatalytic
designed and proposed a proof-of-concept housing self-supply components exhibited only a 10% lower water evaporation rate,
water system to realize the cyclic utilization of household which indicated a feasible combination in this work. Moreover,
sewage. As shown in Fig. 18a, HOPGF arrays are xed under aer 4 h of treatment by the composited paper, both the
a transparent rooop to acquire sufficient solar energy for water condensed water and the puried water appeared colourless
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evaporation. The household wastewater was drawn to the solar and shared the same absorbance spectra, which indicated
absorber by cotton threads through capillary effects and the hot excellent decontaminant properties.
vapor was condensed on the glass rooop. According to Fig. 18b
and c, even under a moderate solar ux of 0.6 sun and ambient
temperature of 15 C, an average water production rate of 0.8 kg 6.3 The evaporation-assisted electricity generation
m2 h1 was achieved by this system. Moreover, according to Innovative designs that tackle two global challenges, freshwater
the authors, for a building with a roof area of 100 m2, 480 kg of and energy scarcity, under sunlight irradiation are of great value
clean water can be collected in a day, which is sufficient to to human society. In recent years, the emergence of interfacial
satisfy the daily needs of seven people. Hence, the proposed solar evaporation has offered new insights into electricity
housing self-supply water system exhibited great promise to generation. Due to its heat connement conguration,
realize the cyclic utilization of household sewage for future ameliorated surface temperature,85 relatively facile preparation
domestic applications. processes,155 and versatile deployable features,156 solar water
To acquire clean water from industrial sewage, Zhou et al.89 evaporation can be applied on a broad range of occasions with
introduced a highly hydratable light-absorbing hydrogel to high energy utilization efficiency. Recent advances have
achieve efficient water evaporation. According to the authors, demonstrated evaporation-assisted electricity generation,157
enhancing the hydratability of the hydrogel can change the which is based on the physical changes in the evaporation
water state and partially activate the water for evaporation, system under sunlight illumination, including temperature
resulting in a water evaporation rate of 3.2 kg m2 h1 with an differences across the solar evaporator, salinity accumulation
energy efficiency of 92% under 1 sun irradiation. Based on beneath the solar absorber,158 frictional contact induced by
such an impressive performance of solar evaporation, the downward water ow,156,159 and horizontal water ow160 in the
hydrogel device also exhibited excellent wastewater purication evaporation surface, etc. It should be mentioned that
results. As shown in Fig. 18d, a steady water evaporation rate evaporation-assisted electricity generation is not comparable to
was obtained in strong acid (1 M H2SO4) and alkali (1 M NaOH) photovoltaic (PV) technology; however, as an extra bonus,
solutions, and the puried water appeared to have neutral pH. evaporation-assisted electricity generation can partially
In addition, nearly four orders of magnitude lower heavy metal ameliorate energy scarcity in a humble way. In this section,
ions were obtained by the hydrogel device, which was compa- conceptual ideas for the dual generation of freshwater and
rable with current commercial purication methods (Fig. 18e). electricity are reviewed.
Oils and/or other organic compounds are always contained in Previously, numerous research studies focused on
real wastewater and may lead to severe fouling problem of solar enhancing the vapor generation and water production rate
evaporation devices. Ma et al.110 reported a MOF-based solar– under solar illumination have been reported. However, the
thermal water evaporator to counter the organic contaminants internal enthalpy of steam was usually lost to the ambient as
in the wastewater. Owing to the strong hydrophilic properties of vapor condensed to water, resulting in a huge energy loss. To
the hierarchical MOF structure, the oil contaminant can be acquire and reutilize this part of the energy, Li et al.161 intro-
efficiently repelled. The Janus features are indicated in Fig. 18f. duced a novel concept to generate clean water and electricity
As shown in Fig. 18g, the water evaporation performance was simultaneously by storing and recycling vapor enthalpy derived
nearly constant in water with an oil layer and slightly reduced in from solar-driven steam generation. As shown in Fig. 19a–c,
an oil-in-water emulsion, compared to clean water. under light illumination, hot vapor was extensively generated
The combination of a photothermal and a porous structure and condensed to produce clean water, while the energy in the
could provide new insights into sewage treatment. For example, vapor was reserved in the thermal storage chamber. The huge
Lou et al.153 reported paper-based composites composed of temperature discrepancy between the chamber and the ambient
reduced graphene oxide (rGO) sheets, porous air-laid paper, and environment was utilized to generate electricity by using ther-
titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles for multifunctional solar- moelectric modules. Under the optimal situation, the solar
driven clean water generation. As shown in Fig. 18h, with the energy utilization efficiency for vapor generation reached 72.2%
porous structure of the paper substrate and enhanced photo- and electricity generation reached 1.23%. Such a performance
thermal response of rGO, contaminants can be efficiently was sufficient for the operation of an electric fan and 28 light-
removed through physical absorption with the aid of emitting diodes. Unlike generating electricity by hot vapor,
evaporation-based upward diffusion. Furthermore, taking the thermalized solar absorber can induce thermoelectricity
advantage of photothermal effects and localized pollutant directly.162 As shown in Fig. 19d and e, a sponge-type solar
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Fig. 19 A schematic illustration of solar evaporation accompanied by electricity generation. (a, d and e) Illustrate thermal electricity based on hot
vapor and a thermalized solar absorber. The performance of the dual-functional devices is demonstrated in (b, c, f and g). Reproduced with
permission.149 Copyright 2018, Elsevier. Reproduced with permission.150 Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. (h) The electricity induced by salinity
gradient across a Nafion membrane. Reproduced with permission.146 Copyright 2017, Elsevier. (i and j) A schematic illustration of harvesting
triboelectric energy via the downward flow of condensate droplets. (k) The wind energy can be harvested due to the swinging of the device. (l)
The water collection amount was recorded over time. Reproduced with permission.144 Copyright 2018, Wiley-VCH.
evaporator is placed directly on the TE module, which generates devices), and water evaporator hydrogel. Under sunlight illu-
electricity based on the Seebeck effect triggered by the mination, the generated vapor was condensed on the tiled walls
temperature discrepancy between the illuminated sponge and as tiny water droplets and grew bigger and owed down to the
bulk water. As shown in Fig. 19f and g, with an optimal external collection vessel with gravity. The ow of the water droplets
resistance of 2 U, a maximum output power density of 0.4 W generated electricity due to the electrication of the water and
m2 was achieved under 1 sun irradiation. Notably, the the PTFE, which resulted from the negatively charged PTFE and
coupling of solar evaporation and thermo-electric technologies the positively charged water droplets. Moreover, wind energy,
was realized without trade-offs, with an evaporation efficiency of which can affect the ow conditions of condensate droplets and
87.4% under 1 sun illumination. electrication of the prototype system, can also be harvested.
Apart from thermal generation, the salinity difference According to the authors, the maximum peak power obtained by
induced by water evaporation has also been applied for the this system was 0.63 mW with an evaporation efficiency of 85%
generation of electricity. Yang and co-workers158 proved that the under one sun illumination.
salinity difference between evaporation-accumulated liquid and Electricity generated from the evaporation-driven water ow
seawater can be utilized for electricity generation. The authors was recognized as a newly developed form of green energy in
prepared a hybrid system composed of a carbon nanotube recent years.163 Xiao and his co-workers160 proposed a novel
(CNT) modied lter paper and an additional ion-selective concept to realize an efficient combination of solar evaporation
membrane (a Naon membrane) to generate water vapor and and horizontal water-ow-induced power generation by an
an ion gradient at the same time. As shown in Fig. 19h, as water asymmetrically functionalized Janus material. The dual-
is continuously being evaporated, high-concentration salt water functional solar evaporation device was composed of a bilayer
is conned in a limited space between the CNT paper and the of carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/cellulose paper partially covered by
Naon membrane for electricity generation. The water evapo- hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) on the bottom. Due
ration and electricity generation increased with enhanced solar to the conned water ow in the membrane device, the direc-
power and a maximum water evaporation rate of 1.1 kg m2 h1 tional proton ow enabled electricity generation. It was proved
and electricity power of 1 W m2 were achieved under one sun that the ion concentration, solar light intensities, and load
illumination. resistance all signicantly affected the power generation. In the
Taking advantage of the downward ow of condensate optimal situation, a maximum output power of 2.1 mW and 1.15
droplets, Gao et al.156 fabricated a proof-of-concept prototype to kg m2 h1 were accomplished by the Janus device under one
collect the condensation water and to harness triboelectric sun illumination.
energy at the same time. As shown in Fig. 19i–l, the prototype Solar-driven evaporation is a process which involves multiple
consists of inclined walls and a round bottom vessel (lined with physical changes, such as thermal generation, salinity gradient
PTFE energy harnessing triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) enhancement, condensation of vapor, and water transportation.
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Taking advantage of those processes may help to produce extra environmental energy is an efficient method to boost the water
electrical energy. It has to be accepted that the productivity of evaporation rate beyond the theoretical upper limit. In a typical
evaporation-assisted electricity is far lower than that of PV design for cold vapor generation, elaborate surface structures
technology (around 1 or 2 orders lower). However, the electricity and intensied vapor escape are required to realize the low
generation is accompanied by solar-driven evaporation as a by- surface temperature (below room temperature) of the device. In
product but not as the main product. The innovative designs of this case, an energy ow from a warmer environment to the
dual-functional solar-driven evaporation provides a feasible evaporation device occurs, which enlarges the energy input for
pathway to ameliorate water and energy scarcity at the same vapor generation. Although the water evaporation rate can be
time. However, the previously mentioned research works in this enhanced signicantly by recovering environmental energy, it is
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section have mainly been accomplished in an indoor environ- a great challenge to condense the cold vapor to boost the water
ment, which may not have enough reliability to sustain the production rate. Hence, further development is necessary to
same performance in practical applications. come up with a solution to address the condensation problem.
The water transportation module plays a signicant role in
7. Conclusion and outlook building the connection between solar absorbers and water
bodies. However, the water ows across the solar absorber take
7.1 Conclusion and discussion most of the thermal energy, which is considered to be the major
A solar evaporation strategy has become one of the technologies heat-draining pathway. In order to achieve efficient solar evap-
with greatest potential to tackle water scarcity over the past few oration, it is necessary to maintain a good balance between
years. Previous reports focused on thermal-driven water evap- thermal generation and water transportation. Currently, such
oration with photothermal conversion and utilization as the a goal can be accomplished either by designing the water supply
main directions.31 Thus, great strides have been made in the pathway or by reducing the water contact area. For example,
design and fabrication of solar absorbers and remarkable vapor Zhao et al.23 prepared a PVA gel-based evaporation device with
production rates have been achieved in an open system.20,23 a hierarchical internal structure for water replenishment, which
However, solar evaporation is a pluralistic process, involving contributes a 0.90 mm s1 bottom water transport rate and 0.89
energy absorption and manipulation, water transportation, and mm s1 surface water loss rate. Li et al.27 fabricated a composite
water collection. Freshwater yield, as the ultimate goal, is evaporation device with jellysh-like water wicking channels,
a more direct metric for the performance evaluation of solar resulting in a reduced water contact area and heat conduction
distillers. loss. Previous attempts had already proven the capability and
Recent advances in solar evaporation have revealed the feasibility of system designs of the water pathway in improving
signicance of system designs of functional modules on overall the energy utilization and water evaporation rate. Hence, it is of
performance enhancement. Energy absorption is considered to great importance to adopt these concepts in practice. Salt
be the foundation for water evaporation. In order to enlarge the crystallization in a solar-driven evaporation system can signi-
total energy input of a solar-driven evaporation device, modi- cantly undermine the performance of water evaporation by
cation of surface topography, energy concentration scheme, and increasing the optical reectance and impeding water and
achieving environmental energy strategies have been summa- vapor transportation. To address this challenge, multidirec-
rized in this review article. These proposed strategies have all tional mass transfer, Janus structures, and localized salt crys-
demonstrated positive effects in enhancing the water evapora- tallization methods have been proposed in the last two years.
tion rate. Specically, by modifying the surface structures, Although multidirectional mass transfer and Janus structures
a solar absorber is capable of minimizing light reection and have proven to be effective in salt-rejection for a long contin-
compensating for the variation in solar angles, which uous working period, the adopted system design may compro-
strengthen solar absorption. Such a design is especially bene- mise the water evaporation rate. In short, the multidirectional
cial for day-long solar-related applications. We envision the mass transfer method relies on the difference between salt
huge potential of this strategy, since performance enhancement gradient and hydraulic conductivity to reject salt back into bulk
can be achieved by other devices by simply copying the designed water. Such a strategy requires sufficient water exchange
surface pattern. Motivated by the optical concentration method, between the evaporation system and bulk water, resulting in
a thermal concentration scheme was proposed to achieve high- enhanced heat conduction loss. To reject salt accumulation by
temperature (100 C) vapor under natural sunlight. Previously, a Janus evaporation system, the thickness of the hydrophobic
efforts were devoted to increasing the interface temperature as top layer is critical, for which a thin layer may not be efficient to
much as possible in order to accelerate the water evaporation counter salt solution inltration and a thick layer may not be
process. The emergence of a thermal concentration scheme efficient in preventing the escape of water vapor. Moreover, the
shed new light on thermal-to-vapor conversion. However, the membrane conguration of a Janus structure shows a relatively
large footprint requirement and intensied heat loss of this high thermal loss. Hence, further improvements are necessary
scheme, signicantly hinder its development in solar evapora- to establish these two strategies before applying them in real-
tion under current system congurations. Nevertheless, we still world applications. In contrast, the localized salt crystalliza-
believe the thermal concentration scheme has huge unexplored tion method, which does not inhibit the salting-out behaviour
potential to exploit, which will require further development and but induces crystallization in desired places, is a promising
motivation from research communities. Recovering approach to perform water evaporation without compromise.
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Moreover, this approach can not only recover the freshwater, world applications. With the trend of approaching commer-
but can also collect salt crystals as a recyclable source. There- cialization, it is necessary to optimize and balance the issues of
fore, localized salt crystallization exhibits greater value and freshwater efficiency, environmental impacts, functional
potential for commercialization. stability, scalability and fabrication costs of solar-driven evap-
Water collection as the nal step in the solar evaporation oration systems.
process has gained increasing interest recently. In a conven- Recent breakthroughs in the system design of solar
tional vapor condensation design, the gas–liquid transition is absorbers with a comprehensive thermal management scheme
performed on a transparent tiled cover and water is collected by have efficiently boosted the water evaporation rate; however,
downow with gravity. However, a huge discrepancy between obtaining freshwater from the gas–liquid transition is still in its
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the water evaporation rate and the water production rate has infancy. In the previous sections, we have mentioned that cold
been found, due to the optical impedance of the condensation vapor driven by environmental energy can efficiently upregulate
cover, sunlight absorption by inner vapor, and inner saturated the overall water evaporation rate, with a value far higher than
humidity. In order to overcome these obstacles, researchers the theoretical limit. However, owing to the intrinsic low
have provided three strategies to combat the phenomena from temperature of a cold vapor, it is difficult to condense it on the
different angles. The rst strategy to enhance the freshwater condensation cover due to the reversed temperature discrep-
yield is to change the structural features of the condensation ancy (the cold vapor has a lower temperature than the ambient).
cover. For example, enhancing the hydrophilicity of the inner In contrast, hot vapor condensation can be easily enhanced by
cover surface can promote the formation of a water lm and modication of the condensation cover, the introduction of
reduce the water droplets, resulting in enhanced light trans- negative pressure, and the recycling of latent heat. However, the
mittance. Enlarging the area of the condensation cover can fabrication cost of the condensation surface, the extra energy
increase the temperature discrepancy across the cover and input of negative pressure, and the scale-up problems in
hence promote the gas–liquid transition. Currently, glass has a multistage latent heat recovery system may bring about new
proven to be the most effective materials for a condensation concerns to be overcome.
cover. The structural features mentioned above are feasible for Previous efforts of solar distillation were accomplished
realization on glass with current technology. However, the under laboratory conditions with brine or even pure water as the
fabrication costs and lifetime maintenance are other concerns water source. However, when considering practical applica-
to be considered. Manipulation of the vapor has proven to be tions, it is inevitable that one must face diverse types of water
highly effective in enhancing the freshwater production rate. sources, such as seawater, river water, ground water, and
The introduction of negative pressure can not only accelerate industrial and household sewage, which may contain a large
the vapor collection rate, but can also promote water evapora- amount of uncertain contaminants, such as metal ions, oil and
tion. However, a fact that cannot be ignored is that the negative grease, organic compounds, and bacteria. Resistance to these
pressure requires additional energy input. Such energy contaminants is essential for maintaining the functional and
consumption makes the entire solar evaporation process structural integrities of solar evaporators. For example, fouling
complex and difficult to handle, especially in large-scale solar by organic compounds may affect the physical properties of
distillation. Therefore, further studies are required to balance a solar absorber, resulting in a reduced water evaporation rate.
the energy input and freshwater output and to consider the The high operating temperature may accelerate the corrosion of
whole process in a comprehensive manner. Very recently, the solar evaporation device in high-salinity water. Salt clogging
a latent heat recovery strategy was reported to enhance the water in the solar evaporators may increase the surface light reection
collection rate by recycling and reutilizing the released latent and limit the water transportation pathways, thus affecting the
heat. In a conventional system setup, the latent heat energy is long-term operational productivity. Although great efforts have
dissipated to the environment once the gas–liquid phase tran- been made to overcome fouling by diverse contaminants via
sition has occurred on the condensation cover. By reversing the material engineering and structural designs and have achieved
vapor escape direction, the latent heat can be recycled with effective results, in most cases, there is a trade-off with the
a multistage condensation conguration. Remarkably, a record performance of solar distillation. Hence, creating a novel solu-
high water evaporation rate of 5.78 kg m2 h1 and a water tion to counteract various water sources over a wide range of
collection rate of 4.34 kg m2 h1 were realized using a 10- conditions for long-term high-performance solar evaporation
stage solar-driven evaporation system.13 In general, latent heat poses a challenging task.
recovery sheds new lights on freshwater production with When faced with commercialization, the scalability and cost
enhanced energy utilization. Considering the promising of a solar evaporator are two important factors affecting the
performances in solar evaporation, it will be benecial to adopt competitiveness of this technology. However, most reported
this strategy in real-world applications. cases did not provide a systematic analysis of cost or mention
the scale-up potential for real-world implementation. Previous
reports paid much more attention to performance enhance-
7.2 Challenges and perspectives ment in water evaporation than to cost analysis. The expenses of
Regardless of the fast and extensive developments in the solar raw materials, fabrication and design costs of solar evaporators,
evaporation eld, there are still multiple challenges that require and lifetime maintenance need to be specied and compared to
further study to bring solar evaporation into practice in real- existing purication and desalination technologies to promote
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Conflicts of interest 19 Y. Guo, X. Zhou, F. Zhao, J. Bae, B. Rosenberger and G. Yu,
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20 F. Liu, B. Zhao, W. Wu, H. Yang, Y. Ning, Y. Lai and
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