At present, conventional solar desalination systems are high cost, high thermal resistance and low system efficiency. For solving these problems, a new device has been designed using light to directly heat seawater to produce freshwater and the influence and enhancement of different porous materials on the solar-driven desalination process was studied. The results show that when the solar irradiation was 2500 W/m², the water production of the system with porous carbon fibres on PVA sponge was the highest 12.43 g/h and that of the system with capillary glass tube was the lowest at 2.25 g/h. The efficiency of black sponge, black gauze, transparent capillary and carbon fibre felt systems were 34.3%, 44.7 %, 9.2% and 50% respectively. The results show that the hydrophilicity of the material, the ability to absorb light and the porous structure greatly influenced the evaporation process.