Natural Cellulose‐Derived Solar Evaporators Enable Sustainable and Efficient Water Treatment

ABSTRACT Solar evaporation has received considerable attention in recent years due to the abundance of solar energy, widely available water sources, and facile facilities, in combination with improvements in conversion efficiency enabled by improved photothermal materials, interfacial heating system designs, and thermal management. In this process, cellulose demonstrates tremendous potential for constructing novel and highly efficient solar evaporators due to its renewability, tunable nanostructure, low thermal conductivity, and strong hydrophilicity. Therefore, in this review, we take the general structure and photothermal conversion mechanism of solar evaporators as our starting point, delving into breakthrough advances in cellulose‐mediated solar evaporators concerning the selection of photothermal materials and substrates. In particular, we also explored the structural design, key features (e.g., thermal management, broadband light absorption, efficient water transport, and salt resistance design), and corresponding construction strategies of cellulose‐mediated solar evaporation. In addition, we have demonstrated the most advanced and innovative applications of cellulose‐mediated solar evaporators in seawater desalination, wastewater treatment, and thermoelectric conversion. The current challenges and future research opportunities for cellulose‐mediated evaporators are also discussed. We sincerely hope this review can provide a fresh roadmap for the future development of solar evaporation technology and further stimulate research enthusiasm for novel high‐performance cellulose‐mediated evaporators.