Surface-Engineered Solar-Driven Interfacial Evaporation: Innovations and Challenges

Abstract

The global demand for clean water, driven by population growth, industrial expansion, and climate change, has made water scarcity a critical issue. Solar-driven interfacial evaporation offers a sustainable solution, featuring carbon-neutral operation, zero liquid discharge, and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals. This review traces the evolution of solar evaporation from bulk heating to optimized interfacial evaporators, focusing on recent innovations and challenges in surface-engineering solar-driven evaporation. This work outlines core principles of solar evaporation and provides methodologies for measuring key parameters. This work then explores the fabrication of surface-engineered evaporators, with an emphasis on polyelectrolyte-modified interfaces and their role in water activation. Beyond desalination, this work examines how interfacial engineering enables multifunctional applications, like lithium extraction and renewable energy generation. Finally, this work highlights the current challenges and propose future research directions to propel theoretical advancements and the development of next-generation integrated systems for water purification and resource recovery.