The current paper reviews a present work about the role of nanomaterial in many fields especially in a solar energy distillation system. The nanomaterial increases the absorptivity of sunlight and thermal conductivity of the base material. Benefits of using nanomaterial in solar still are thermal performance improvement with acceptable consequences. There is a lot of studies done on solar still using nanomaterial with different parameters and his effects. The purpose of this review consists of exhibiting the performed researches, the main objective of the studies and results, mathematical data and measurements. It was observed that many statement issues that should be taken into account, namely few works have analyzed nanoparticles in solar still active configurations, furthermore, investigations are required to examine the effects of nanoparticle size, the shape of the nanograin and amount of the nanoparticles.