Abstract

Due to the scarcity of freshwater resources in many arid regions of the world, as well as rapidly growing populations and industrialization, various desalination technologies have been developed and enhanced to improve the performance of saline water purification with high quality. Integrating solar energy technologies with desalination systems would alleviate the running out of fossil fuel sources, reduce costs, and improve energy efficiency. Solar-powered desalination systems could be a viable and efficient method for treating highly saline water for human consumption. Obtaining reliable and accurate design parameters for such hybrid systems plays a significant role in determining the system performance of solar-driven desalination systems. The present review provides a comprehensive review of various solar-driven membrane-based desalination systems to investigate the impact of design and operation parameters for solar and desalination units on the effectiveness of the hybrid solar/desalination system. Recent advancements in utilizing numerous solar energy sources for desalination are analyzed herein. The economic implications of various membrane desalination operations for different solar energy sources are also discussed. It was revealed that the solar system design parameters, desalination unit characteristics, feed water properties, and climate conditions all affect the functionality and productivity of the membrane-based solar-powered desalination system. The feed pressure, number and shape of membranes, and the integrated solar system, all have significant impacts on the performance of the hybrid system. This article provides a pathway for desalination researchers to select the optimal design and operation parameters for hybrid solar-powered membrane-based desalination systems. Notably, they are found more feasible and sustainable than traditional desalination processes. Several related conclusions and future perspectives are reported herein.