Nano-enhanced solar evaporators for desalination: A comprehensive bibliometric review

Nanostructures gained popularity in recent years because they exhibit preferable thermo-physical and optical properties for solar desalination applications. Solar steam generation presents an effective solution to worldwide water scarcity issues through its solar-powered desalination process which uses solar energy. To obtain high evaporation rates, the development of cost-effective and highly efficient photothermal evaporators is still challenging. The objective of this bibliometric review is to analyze the keywords, authors, countries, and key sources in the field of nano-enhanced solar evaporators for desalination. The WoS (Web of Science) database was used to collect the documents, and bibliometric analysis was carried out through VOS viewer and Bibliometrix software. The results showed that 270 papers (Research articles: 265 and Review articles: 5) studied nanoenhanced solar evaporators for desalination from 2017 to 2024. Over the prior five years, the number of pub-lications has increased significantly, which shows the imperative for advanced nanostructured photothermal absorbers for solar desalination applications. Commercialization requires improved absorber stability, salt blocking, scalability, low toxicity, and affordability.