Floating solar stills and floating solar-driven membranes: Recent advances and overview of designs, performance and modern combinations

For life to exist on earth, there must be water. Freshwater resources are in short supply due to industrialization and the world's rapid population expansion. Growing water shortage argues that using passive solar stills is the best and most practical solution in the world's arid and semi-arid regions. For applications in distant or rural coastal areas, floating solar stills are an appropriate technique. To provide accessibility to a wider population, the gadget should be constructed using inexpensive materials that are easily accessible nearby. However, the low-cost materials typically do not have the optimum physical characteristics, which reduces the overall performance of solar stills. This study intends to deliver a comprehensive review that summarizes recent research developments and gives a rundown of experimental, numerical, and experimental and numerical studies on floating solar stills and floating solar-driven membranes. This article also looks at a few more setups, researched parameters, and result-finding issues. Research on floating solar is currently ongoing, and recommendations for further research projects have been made in light of the study's findings.