Global trends of seawater desalination research: An AI-assisted bibliometric analysis during 2019–2024

As the global water crisis intensifies, the significance of seawater desalination has become increasingly apparent. This study employed a bibliometric analysis of scholarly publications and patent applications from 2019 to 2024 to identify recent research hotspots and emerging trends in the field. Besides conventional analysis methods, 6864 papers were categorized through an AI-assisted approach. The findings indicated that the most prolific research areas, ranked in descending order, include renewable energy-driven seawater desalination, membrane development, design and process optimization, chemical extraction, and environmental impact. Notably, the fastest-growing research domains were renewable energy-based desalination and chemical resource extraction from brine. Although membrane development remains a dominant research area, its growth trajectory has been relatively modest. China played a pivotal role in seawater desalination research, ranking first globally in both paper publications and patent applications. However, the academic impact of China's publications remains moderate in academic impact. Regarding patent applicants, universities were the predominant contributors in China, whereas enterprises held the majority of patents in the Middle East and the United States. • An AI-assisted literature classification approach is applied, offering improved accuracy and efficiency over traditional keyword clustering methods. • China ranks highest in publications and patents. • Research on seawater chemical resource extraction and renewable-energy-powered desalination has shown the most rapid growth in the past five years.