Current insights and future outlooks of energy-efficient desalination plants: A comprehensive bibliometric analysis

• Publications on energy efficiency in desalination rose from 974 in 2019 to 1,749 in 2024. • Tsinghua University, China leads in publications, reflecting its strong research impact. • Advances in membrane materials and renewable energy are improving desalination efficiency. • Integration of AI and Machine learning further enhances desalination efficiency. Due to the rising demography and climate change, the freshwater demand has increased, intensifying global water scarcity. Seawater desalination, which is the largest available water source, represents a key solution for potable water production. However, desalination plants remain highly energy-intensive. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of recent research on energy-efficient desalination technologies, revealing quantitative growth measures, leading technological directions, and evolving research themes. The bibliometrix tool and VOSviewer were employed to analyze 8,398 articles from the Scopus database, published between 2019 and 2024. Results show a strong growth in scientific research output, moving from 974 in 2019 to 1749 publications in 2024, indicating a global increasing interest in energy-efficient desalination. Reverse osmosis remains the dominant desalination process due to its low specific energy consumption. Meanwhile, hybrid configurations, including FO-RO, advanced membranes, renewable energy coupling, and energy-recovery devices, are identified as major research areas. Institutional and authorship analyses show that Chinese institutions, particularly Tsinghua University, present the highest publication output and intense collaboration. However, global contributions are heterogeneous, with fewer publications from Africa and some of South America. Common keywords include “energy efficiency,” desalination,” carbon dioxide,” and “reverse osmosis”, reflecting focus on sustainability and emissions reduction. Overall, the findings indicate a transition from conventional efficiency improvements toward digitally enabled, renewable-integrated and system-optimized desalination systems. By mapping global research trends and thematic evolutions, this study offers strategic directions for advancing sustainability and energy efficiency in future desalination research.