Today, clean water availability is quite hard especially for people living in remote areas and coastal ones. Even for those who find underground water, they need to treat it before using. Solar still is a very useful method to be used in desalination and purifying water as it uses solar energy which is available around the globe with no cost and is eco-friendly. Many types of solar stills are invented to increase its daily productivity (stepped solar stills, inclined solar stills, pyramid solar still, wick, etc.). In this regard, this paper represents a mini-review of a new type of solar still named tubular solar still (TSS), its working method, thermal analysis, performance and method of enhancement. The remarkable improvement is attributed to the use of nanotechnology (ZnO nano-rod shape) by which the productivity and efficiency are increased by 30% and 38% respectively. Moreover, some futuristic developments on TSS are included in this review. (C) 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.