Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews· 2026Q1· Review
Fibrous fabric-derived solar interfacial evaporators for renewable water production: A review on material tuning, structural design, and applications
- 0citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Fibrous fabrics offer superior advantages over rigid substrates or hydrogels for solar interfacial water evaporation (SIWE) due to their multiscale porosity, flexibility, and tunable capillary action, enabling efficient water supply and thermal confinement.
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Key points
- Fibrous fabrics offer advantages for SIWE due to multiscale porosity, flexibility, and tunable capillary action.
- Hierarchical micro/nanofiber networks regulate water supply, vapor escape, and thermal confinement.
- The review correlates fiber characteristics and textile architectures with performance in light absorption, thermal localization, water supply, vapor diffusion, and salt migration.
- Fabrication strategies and textile structures impact evaporation performance, durability, and stability.
- Applications include desalination, wastewater purification, energy generation, atmospheric water harvesting, and photocatalysis.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Growing global freshwater scarcity has motivated solar-driven interfacial water evaporation (SIWE) to emerge as a sustainable and carbon-neutral strategy for desalination and wastewater remediation. Compared with conventional rigid porous substrates or swollen hydrogels, fibrous fabrics offer distinctive advantages owing to their intrinsic multiscale porosity, flexible mechanical properties, and tunable capillary action. These hierarchical micro/nanofiber networks enable effective regulation of water supply, vapor escape, and localized thermal confinement. Although recent reviews have examined solar-driven interfacial evaporation and textile-based evaporators, the integrated relationships among fiber properties, textile architecture, fabrication, and interfacial transport remain insufficiently explored. Accordingly, this review adopts a structure-property perspective for fibrous fabric-derived solar interfacial evaporators, emphasizing the coupled transport of light, heat, water, vapor, and salt. The characteristics of natural and synthetic fibers are correlated with multiscale textile architectures and their impacts on light absorption, thermal localization, capillary water supply, vapor diffusion, and salt migration. The effects of fabrication strategies and textile structures on evaporation performance, durability, and stability are discussed. Multifunctional applications, including desalination, wastewater purification, energy generation, atmospheric water harvesting, and photocatalysis, are reviewed. Rather than identifying an optimal material or structure, this review highlights the trade-offs among material properties, textile design, fabrication strategies, and application requirements. Finally, remaining challenges and future perspectives for fabric-based solar evaporators are discussed.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the EnvironmentEnergy