Citation: Dai, Y.; Liu, M.; Li, J.; Kang, N.; Ahmed, A.; Zong, Y.; Tu, J.; Chen, Y.; Zhang, P.; Liu,X. Graphene-Based Membranes for Water Desalination: A Literature Review and Content Analysis. Polymers 2022, 14, 4246. https:// doi.org/10.3390/polym14194246 Academic Editors: María del Carmen García Payo and Alfredo Cassano Received: 11 August 2022 Accepted: 28 September 2022 Published: 10 October 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). polymers Review Graphene-Based Membranes for Water Desalination: A Literature Review and Content Analysis Yexin Dai 1 , Miao Liu 1 , Jingyu Li 1 , Ning Kang 1 , Afaque Ahmed 1 , Yanping Zong 2 , Jianbo Tu 2 , Yanzhen Chen 2 , Pingping Zhang 3 and Xianhua Liu 1, * 1 School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300354, China 2 Tianjin Marine Environmental Center Station, Ministry of Natural Resources, Tianjin 300450, China 3 College of Food Science and Engineering, Tianjin Agricultural University, Tianjin 300384, China * Correspondence: lxh@tju.edu.cn; Tel.: +86-22-85356239 Abstract: Graphene-based membranes have unique nanochannels and can offer advantageous properties for the water desalination process. Although tremendous efforts have been devoted to heightening membrane performance and broadening their application, there is still lack of a systematic literature review on the development and future directions of graphene-based membranes for desalination. In this mini-review, literature published between 2011 and 2022 were analyzed by using the bibliometric method. We found that the major contributors to these publications and the highest citations were from China and the USA. Nearly 80% of author keywords in this analysis were used less than twice, showing the broad interest and great dispersion in this field. The recent advances, remaining gaps, and strategies for future research, were discussed. The development of new multifunctional nanocomposite materials, heat-driven/solar-driven seawater desalination, and large-scale industrial applications, will be important research directions in the future. This literature analysis summarized the recent development of the graphene-based membranes for desalination application, and will be useful for researchers in gaining new insights into this field. Keywords: graphene; membrane; desalination; bibliometric analysis; reverse osmosis; forward osmosis; solar water purification 1. Introduction The shortage and security of water resources are the main challenges in the 21st century. The rapid growth of population, the fast development of industrialization, and accelerated climate change has caused great pressure on the security of water resources, and further exacerbated the global water crisis [1–6]. The world’s water council predicts that the number of people affected by water shortage will rise to 3.9 billion in the coming decades. As one of the most promising solutions to mitigate the water crisis, desalination will expand water availability beyond that of the hydrological cycle. Seawater desalination converts seawater into a usable water product for industries or even domestic applications, providing an unlimited, continuous source of high-quality water without affecting existing freshwater habitats. Commercial desalination of water started during the early part of the 20th century. With the growing demand for water and the lack of sustainable natural water resources, reliance on desalination will continue to rise and, as a result, its energy consumption and environmental effects will continuously increase without limitations. Overall, over 75 million people worldwide are estimated to be obtaining fresh water by desalinating seawater or brackish water. Many desalination technologies, such as distillation [7–11], reverse osmosis (RO) [12–16], and electrodialysis [17–19], have been developed. The general application of polyamide membrane-based RO desalination seems to be well established, but it is worth noting that the most ideal membrane should have the highest possible water flux, complete salt rejection, high anti-fouling, and oxidation tolerance. Therefore, it is Polymers 2022, 14, 4246. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14194246 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers