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For decades considerable attempt has been specifically devoted toward the integration of renewable energy sources (RES) to power different desalination systems. However, at present, various techno-economic limitations hamper directing these efforts towards wide-range applications. In this review paper, the current status of RES-based desalination technologies, with a focus on the hybrid process, their enhancement, and promising application, besides their current techno-economic restrictions has been explored. This approach is highly eco-friendly since waste formation is the minimum and can be a potential advantage to the construction of local industrial plants. In addition, it can offer effective solutions in the agriculture field like crop irrigation. Nevertheless, it is exigent to enhance their technical-thermal performance by conducting a comprehensive analysis for industrializing them. For maximizing the synergistic effect of integrated RES modification of traditional desalination systems with an incessant pursuit for research and development is absolutely crucial. Because, this approach significantly underpins their market penetration and feasibility in a cost-effective manner. Moreover, the authors briefly presented an overview of environmental prospects and engineering challenges of desalination for designing a sustainable methodology in the water-energy nexus. Also, the authors propose the knowledge gaps and perspectives to delineate the future research direction concerning environmental-engineering-energy aspects. All in all, despite several outstanding advancements in the integration of RES with various desalination technologies, their long-term performance and energy-intensive nature still remain challenging. Hence it can be concluded that both desalination technologies and RES still require further intensive research efforts for evaluating their long-term conduction, minimizing energy consumption, and mitigation of environmental footprints.
Shokri et al. (Wed,) studied this question.