Current progress in integrated solar desalination systems: Prospects from coupling configurations to energy conversion and desalination processes

Abstract

In this work, the recent advances in solar-powered water desalination systems are reviewed in detail. The recently published designs of solar-powered desalination systems such as solar stills integrated with phase change materials, multi-effect distillation (MED), multi-stage flash (MSF), humidification-dehumidification (HDH), reverse osmosis (RO), and membrane distillation (MD) are reviewed and discussed. The water desalination systems driven by photovoltaic and concentrating solar power (CSP) are also of great interest in this review. The reviewed results reveal that photovoltaic-powered RO desalination systems are still at the top as the most common technique used for water desalination powered by solar thermal sources. Where this technique achieves high daily productivity per unit area of the solar field with considerably low cost compared. The conjunction between the MSF and the CSP plants is ranked second in this competition as the desalination system benefits from the heat recovered from the CSP plants. In addition, for development technology for solar-based distillation, an integrated system that is involved two membrane processes or the combination of these processes with solar thermal heating/electrification hybrids is acquiring much popularity. In high-salinity seawater distillation, the scrupulous choice of proper initial and post-treatments yields more thermoeconomic benefits in terms of energetic efficiency, specific freshwater product, cost per liter and specific energy consumption as well as the operational independence for off-grid applications. Overall, the surveyed findings and concerned comparisons for the diversified solar combinations are discussed critically. Finally, some future recommendations related to integrated solar desalination systems are also mentioned, which assist in creating newly pathways for decision-makers to explore efficient hybrid desalination methods.