Solar-driven interfacial evaporation for water treatment: advanced research progress and challenges

Abstract

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation (SDIE) using the widely distributed solar energy as the driving force and simple and portable photothermal evaporation structures as the core component can achieve efficient energy conversion and excellent seawater desalination effect, and thus has attracted significant attention from researchers. SDIE can be applied not only in seawater desalination systems but also has a good application prospect in the water treatment field. Herein, in continuation of our previous studies on SDIE and based on the analysis of the characteristics of recently developed photothermal materials (PMs) in water treatment applications, we discuss the purification effect of interfacial evaporation technology on different pollutants and summarize the practical development of SDIE, providing theoretical guidance and technical support for SDIE to achieve efficient water treatment.