Heat losses in interfacial solar evaporation systems
Maryam Nooman ALMALLAHI, Mohamed Y.E. SELIM, Mahmoud ELGENDI
Abstract. Freshwater is essential for all living beings and has a huge role in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6). For that, obtaining freshwater is essential, especially in arid areas where natural resources are not present. Interfacial solar evaporation (ISE) is increasingly popular for clean water generation with its ability to localize heat at the water-air interface. Although heat is localized at the evaporation surface, which significantly improves efficiency, ISE systems still suffer from heat losses to the environment through conduction, convection, and radiation. The conductive heat transfers from the evaporator into the bulk water. The heat loss from convection moves to the surrounding air, while radiation heat loss to the environment. The overall evaporation efficiency is highly dependent on heat losses, which remain a major concern for achieving higher performance. This work provides a brief overview of the heat loss mechanisms in ISE that affect energy conversion efficiency and evaporation rate.
Keywords
Structure Design, Photothermal Material, Interfacial Solar Evaporation
Published online 6/20/2026, 5 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Maryam Nooman ALMALLAHI, Mohamed Y.E. SELIM, Mahmoud ELGENDI, Heat losses in interfacial solar evaporation systems, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 67, pp 671-675, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904176-91
The article was published as article 91 of the book Climate Action and Sustainability
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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