Solar-assisted carbon capture,which integrates three technologies of energy efficient, renewable energy utilization,CO_2 capture together,is a reasonable solution to mitigate the challenge of climate change. The research status of solar-assisted carbon capture of post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxygen-combustion is summarized in terms of separation method and technology, etc. Then separation processes of different technologies are evaluated using ideal minimum separation work and thermodynamic separation efficiency. Finally,several potential directions of solar-assisted carbon capture in the future may be the basic theory of energy efficiency,highly-efficient integration and cascade utilization. The separation model would not fit to the second generation technologies and the framework of carbon capture would be expanded. Solar-assisted links would be added as well from carbon capture to transportation and storage. Cascade utilization of solar-assisted carbon capture would become more flexible.