Direct solar steam generation (DSSG) as a green purification technology only driven by solar energy has attracted the attention of researchers. Compared with large-scale water purification technologies such as membrane distillation, reverse osmosis and multistage flash distillation, it has convenient, low cost and distributed features. In recent years, water path of evaporator has been gradually optimized and some new strategies has been promoted. In this review, we summarize the development of water path as well as new evaporation strategies including utilizing environmental energy, multi-level utilization of energy efficiency and decreasing evaporation enthalpy. Future research direction and problems to be solved has also been discussed. The current deficiencies and challenges have been pointed to speed the practical application of distributed DSSG purification technology.
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