An extensive review on thermodynamic aspect based solar desalination techniques

Abstract

The shortage of freshwater is becoming a major threat to sustainable environmental development. Water desalination techniques provide solutions for freshwater requirements. Solar energy is considered as a plentiful and effortlessly available renewable energy. Desalination with solar energy is a suitable technique to convert brackish water into fresh water and that has received greater attention. The traditional desalination processes require a substantial quantity of energy, and with an extensive investigation of different methods of desalination, frameworks have experimented in the most recent couple of decades. The different types of desalination techniques using solar energy with exergy analysis are studied and presented in this review paper. The exergy performance cost affecting factors and the economic feasibility of several desalination plants such as solar stills, humidification and dehumidification, multi-effect distillation, reverse osmosis, and multi-stage flash desalination techniques are studied and reported in this paper. The present study revealed that the desalination of water using solar energy as an efficient as well as a cost-effective method as compared desalination of water with other energy sources.