Fibrous fabric-derived solar interfacial evaporators for renewable water production: A review on material tuning, structural design, and applications

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.