Trends in Solar Powered Water Desalination Using Hydrogels: A Short Review

Just as Benjamin Franklin said, 'When the well's dry, we know the worth of water', rapid increases in population, urbanization, and climate change are posing severe water stress conditions in recent times. This problem is becoming grim in the developing world and is expected to affect half of the world's population by the middle of this century. In its response, transpiration process-inspired, solar-powered water desalination using biomimetic morphing hydrogels has recently been gaining attention. However, the selection of suitable absorber material to capture full solar spectra, engineering water transport channels for better conversion efficiency, and designing optimum surface topology and vapor generation are bottleneck challenges for practical implementation. Correspondingly, we intend to attend these challenges by developing scalable, low-cost, and eco-friendly hydrogel. We present a short literature review to select suitable absorber materials, polymer networks, and fabrication processes.