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Herein, a core–shell tellurium–selenium (Te–Se) nanomaterial with polymer‐tailed and lateral heterojunction structures is developed as a photothermal absorber in a bionic solar‐evaporation system. It is further revealed that the amorphous Se shell surrounds the crystalline Te core, which not only protects the Te phase from oxidation but also serves as a natural barrier to life entities. The core (Te)–shell (Se) configuration thus exhibits robust stability enhanced by 0.05 eV per Se atom and excellent biocompatibility. Furthermore, high energy efficiencies of 90.71 ± 0.37% and 86.14 ± 1.02% and evaporation rates of 12.88 ± 0.052 and 1.323 ± 0.015 kg m−2 h−1 are obtained under 10 and 1 sun for simulated seawater, respectively. Importantly, no salting out is observed in salt solutions, and the collected water under natural light irradiation possesses extremely low ion concentrations of Na+, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ relative to real seawater. Considering the tunable electronic structures, biocompatibilities, and modifiable broadband absorption of the solar spectrum of lateral heterojunction nanomaterials of Te–Se, the way is paved to engineering 2D semiconductor materials with supporting 3D porous hydrophilic materials for application in solar desalination, wastewater treatment, and biomedical ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Introduce the latest technology of Interfacial solar steam generation (ISSG). • Highlight various advanced high-efficiency strategies. • Comprehensive high-efficiency strategies are the key to higher efficient evaporation. • Discuss the latest application progress of the ISSG system. • Improving energy efficiency and reducing costs are the challenges in applications. The interface solar-driven steam generation technology is a new type of solar energy utilization technology that can simultaneously meet the needs of energy, environment, and freshwater. In recent years, this technology has attracted widespread attention and research. With the increasingly advanced high-efficiency strategy, the interface solar-driven steam generation system's performance is rapidly improving. This review discusses this system's latest developments in various high-efficiency strategies from three perspectives: light absorption, heat utilization, and water and salt control. By analyzing these high-efficiency strategies' progress and the deficiencies of the systems, it is recommended that future research should pay more attention to (1) the application of comprehensive high-efficiency strategies, (2) unified testing and efficiency calculation specifications, and (3) system stability and cost. Subsequently, this technology's latest applications in seawater desalination, sterilization, sewage treatment, and water and electricity cogeneration are discussed. After the above discussion, the review further analyzes the current systems' challenges in different practical applications and puts forward suggestions to deal with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar-driven interfacial steam generation (SISG) technology for seawater desalination is a green solution to the current freshwater crisis. However, salt accumulation and heat loss in the SISG system under high-concentration brine still have not been solved simultaneously. Inspired by the 3D evaporation structure design, we proposed a strategy to achieve self-acting salt rejection and extra evaporation. The strategy is based on a 3D T-shaped porous sponge (3DTPS), which helps various 2D photothermal films achieving self-acting salt rejection and extra evaporation simultaneously. 3DTPS provides a large number of water exchange channels for the 2D photothermal film. Therefore, under one sun (1 kW m−2), even if the brine concentration is as high as 20 wt%, salt-free can be maintained. When the hot is transferred downward, the T-shaped structure enables the 3DTPS to expose its heated surface to a greater extent in the air. 3DTPS (D = 2.5 cm) is used as an additional evaporation structure for extra evaporation, resulting in an increase of evaporation efficiency for an extra more than 21%. Unlabelled Image • 3DTPS can easily use to assemble 3D salt-rejection evaporation system. • 3DTPS help 2D photothermal films stably evaporation in 20 wt% NaCl solution. • Efficiently utilize heat achieve extra 21% evaporation efficiency under one sun. • 3D evaporation system based on 3DTPS is low cost and easy to scale up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]