Renewable energy-driven seawater desalination: A comprehensive review

Population growth, urbanization, and industrialization have led to a significant increase in global freshwater demand. Desalination of available and abundant water resources is a feasible option to meet the potable and industrial water demand. Seawater desalination is an energy-intensive process, and 99% of installed desalination plants use fossil fuels as the main energy source. Fluctuating prices and depletion of this type of energy resources, as well as their destructive environmental effects due to emissions and greenhouse gases along with other strategic, political, economic, and social factors, have led to widespread attention to the integration of renewable energy as a driving force for desalination plants. This study provides a comprehensive review of the recent progress made in renewable energy-driven seawater desalination and focuses on the use of solar, nuclear, wind, geothermal, ocean, biomass energy, and hybrid renewable resources in desalination. Utilizing a hybrid system of two or more renewable energy sources along with storage devices is proposed as a reliable and promising solution to provide a sustainable energy supply for desalination. In our country, researchers and experts in this field are trying and researching.