Solar-driven interfacial evaporation toward clean water production: burgeoning materials, concepts and technologies

Abstract

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation, as a rising star for eco-friendly and cost-effective freshwater production with a minimized carbon footprint, has been widely studied and implemented in recent years. With the rapid development of this frontier field, many burgeoning materials, new concepts and innovative preparation technologies leading to the next hotspot and front have been developed very recently. It is therefore critical to update the broader scientific community on the important advances in this field. Herein, we focus on the most recently reported progress in new materials, concepts and technologies for solar-driven interfacial evaporation toward clean water production. The emerging materials are categorized into organic small molecules, bio-inspired materials and coordination compounds, which are different from most reported “traditional” materials such as plasmonic particles, semiconductors, carbonaceous materials and polymer materials. The light absorption mechanism and molecular design principle of these emerging materials are discussed in detail. Subsequently, new concepts for significantly boosting the water evaporation rate and thermal efficiency, and new designs for anti-salt-fouling toward high-salinity brine, as well as enhanced condensation, are also highlighted, followed by the introduction of newly developed technologies, such as 3D printing and antifreeze-assisted freezing techniques, for realizing new concepts and designs. Finally, the challenges and opportunities for the future development of solar-driven interfacial evaporation toward clean water production are discussed.