Freshwater Production Towards Microgrid Integration: Physics, Progress, and Prospects of Solar-Thermal Evaporation

• The thermally induced system of solar-thermal evaporation is reviewed. • Solar-thermal conversion evaluation principles are studied. • Methods and system topology of solar-thermal evaporation are elaborately discussed. • Co-generation of freshwater and electrical power is briefly presented. • Current advances in solar-thermal evaporation are presented with potential difficulties. Solar-thermal evaporation is an ancient system that generates thermal-induced vapor utilizing solar energy, which is renewable, clean, and has negligible environmental footprints. Though old, this system has recently revived tremendous attraction to the science community because of synthesized high-absorptive materials, smart heat and vapor management, and engineering marvels in device configurations. Integrated as a whole, the solar-thermal evaporation system facilitates improved solar to vapor conversion efficiency at low capital costs. In this review, a comprehensive discussion of physics, chemistry, and engineering behind solar-thermal evaporation systems has been presented in a summary manner. Moreover, this paper potentially addresses freshwater production techniques from sea or wastewater and nexuses some innovative approaches to generate electrical power. This review also presents emerging research activities in various aspects of solar-thermal evaporation with some interesting findings and points out critical advancement deficiencies. The futuristic view of microgrid system integration is also discussed extensively to nexus electrical power generation cleanly. This paper intends to present a comprehensive assessment of current advances in STE systems to encourage primary and practical research in leveraging underutilized supplemental energy sources for future integration of water, energy, and environmental systems with promised research direction and advancement.