Solar-Energy-Driven Desalination Technologies

Solar-energy-driven desalination encompasses a suite of approaches that harness solar radiation to separate freshwater from saline or contaminated sources. Central to these efforts are interfacial solar evaporation systems, which localise heat at the water–air interface to drive rapid vapour generation, and integrated photovoltaic–thermal configurations that combine electricity production with membrane distillation stages. Advances in materials science have yielded photothermal absorbers with broadband solar capture, thermal insulation layers to minimise losses, and three-dimensional architectures that exploit capillary flow and Marangoni-driven liquid transport. Parallel developments in sorbent-based atmospheric water harvesters extend desalination to arid regions by capturing vapour from air. Together, these innovations promise decentralised, low-carbon water production for remote communities, disaster relief and industrial applications, while ongoing work addresses scalability, salt-rejection management and long-term device durability.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Flexible thin-film plasmonic membranes featuring ultrabroadband light absorption have been demonstrated to achieve high solar-to-vapour conversion efficiencies by combining nanoscale metallic gaps for plasmonic nanofocusing with microporous heat-localisation funnels. These membranes reach average absorptance above 90 % over the solar spectrum, yielding vapour generation efficiencies exceeding 50 %. In another development, multistage photovoltaic–membrane distillation devices integrate solar cells with cascaded distillation stages that recycle latent heat. Under one sun illumination, they deliver both electricity and over 1.6 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ of freshwater, reducing land and mounting infrastructure requirements. More recently, bio-inspired three-dimensional evaporators employ inhomogeneous water films and temperature gradients to drive Marangoni flow, achieving energy efficiencies beyond 95 % even at high salinities, with in situ salt crystallisation and easy removal.

Solar-Energy-Driven Desalination Technologies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in solar-energy-driven desalination technologies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Interfacial solar evaporation: Localisation of solar-induced heat at the liquid surface to drive vapour generation without heating the bulk fluid.

Photothermal conversion: Transformation of absorbed solar photons into thermal energy by specialised materials or nanostructures.

Marangoni effect: Liquid flow induced by gradients in surface tension, often arising from temperature or concentration differences.

Membrane distillation: A thermally driven separation process in which vapour passes through a hydrophobic membrane, leaving salts and contaminants behind.

References

1. Micro–Nano Water Film Enabled High-Performance Interfacial Solar Evaporation. Nano-Micro Letters (2023).
2. Aerogel-based solar-powered water production from atmosphere and ocean: A review. Materials Science and Engineering R Reports (2023).
3. Flexible thin-film black gold membranes with ultrabroadband plasmonic nanofocusing for efficient solar vapour generation. Nature Communications (2015).
4. Adsorption-based atmospheric water harvesting device for arid climates. Nature Communications (2018).
5. Highly efficient three-dimensional solar evaporator for high salinity desalination by localized crystallization. Nature Communications (2020).
6. Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation. Nature Communications (2019).
7. Pathways and challenges for efficient solar-thermal desalination. Science Advances (2019).