Hybridizing photovoltaic cell with direct contact membrane distillation for electricity and freshwater cogeneration: Concept and performance evaluation

Abstract

Electricity and freshwater are essential for daily routines, and the cogeneration of electricity and freshwater using solar energy is charming in islands and coastal areas. In this work, a novel hybrid system model mainly comprised of a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) and a direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) is put forward with the aim to harvest the long wavelength light transmitted through the DSSC for freshwater production. Considering various irreversible losses within the system, performance parameters of DSSC, DCMD and hybrid system are mathematically described, from which the hybrid system performance limits are discussed. Numerical calculations show that maximum efficiency and maximum power output density of hybrid system are, respectively, up to 45.35% and 453.52 W m−2, which are, respectively, 814.31% and 482.78% larger than that of stand-alone DSSC. Exhaustive sensitivity analyses are conducted to investigate how the proposed system performance is influenced by some operating conditions and designing parameters. It is found that feed water temperature, flow velocity of feed water and flow velocity of permeate water positively improve the performance of hybrid system, but permeate water temperature and Schottky barrier adversely affect the performance of hybrid system. The performance of hybrid system is further discussed under optimization conditions.