Abstract: This review focuses on the progress of fouling prevention and enhancement of boiling heat transfer in evaporator with traditional and nanometer surface engineering techniques. The anti-fouling and heat-transfer enhancement functions of the heat-transfer low-energy surfaces，including the coatings surface with nanometer materials prepared by using the magnetron sputter，ion implantation，electroless plating，molecule self-assembly techniques are analyzed. It is considered that the difficulty is to prepare a surface that can both prevent fouling and enhance boiling evaporation. Scale formation and antifouling mechanism of treated surface for the liquid system with high viscosity，and the application of the nanometer surface engineering method should be emphasized in the future work.