Materials and structures engineering of sun-light absorbers for efficient direct solar steam generation

Water desalination through steam generation using solar energy not only is a low cost and facile technology but also uses a free source of energy. This technology is performed through two direct and indirect methods. This work focuses on the direct one where the materials, mechanisms, and structures used for desalinating water through the production of steam by solar energy are reviewed. Since the light absorber is the heart of the system, all absorber types with a variety of structures including graphene, graphite, carbon, carbon nanotube (CNT), carbonized wood, plants, polymers, and plasmonic nanoparticles are studied. It is shown that how the material, structure, and design of the absorbers have been tuned to overcome the challenges regarding the performance and cost effectiveness of these systems, leading to propos the perspective on future development of this structures.