Recent Progress on Emerging Porous Materials for Solar‐Driven Interfacial Water Evaporation

Abstract

Solar‐driven interfacial water evaporation (SDIWE) offers a sustainable, environmentally friendly, and promising solution to the global water and energy crisis. Over the last decades, desalination, wastewater purification, power generation, and metal ion recovery and reuse based on SDIWE have been extensively investigated. In particular, considerable attention has been devoted to photothermal materials, as they are a key element of the SDIWE. As a class of crystalline porous materials, featuring diversified and customized structures, precise and tuneable functions, large specific surface area, low thermal conductivity and good light absorption, metal organic frameworks (MOFs), zeolite imidazolium frameworks (ZIFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), and their derived composites have been proven to possess great potential in the field of SDIWE. In this review, first the photothermal conversion mechanisms of MOFs, ZIFs, COFs, and their derived photothermal composites (M–Z–Cs) are briefly summarized, and then their structure design strategies and preparation methods from the perspectives of energy intake, energy management, and energy utilization are analyzed. Finally, based on the summary of their practical applications, an outlook in future research on these materials systems is provided, taking into account the current several challenges in the field of SDIWE.