Modeling and Experimental Investigation of Solar Stills for Enhancing Water Desalination Process

Marwa Mostafa,Mohamed A Mohamed,Heba M Abdullah

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3038934

Abstract

Despite the importance of the desalination process in removal of water salinity to produce fresh drinking water, it is an energy-consuming process. Therefore, the use of solar energy as an alternative and free energy source has an important role in enhancing the efficiency of the desalination process. This paper presents an experimental investigation using solar chimney to enhance the desalination process, where a modification to the conventional solar stills has been made. A mathematical model describing air flow inside the solar chimney has been constructed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The commercial CFD package fluent release 6.3 has been used in this paper to express the air flow and temperature distribution inside solar chimney. Furthermore, the process parameters such as seasonal temperature, salt concentration, water depth and type of solar desalination unit have been examined to find the best operating conditions. The desalination process has been recommended to be carried out under permissible operating conditions in sunny days, with water depths ranging from (1–2 cm) and low salt concentration ranging from (3.5–8%). The modeled data has been verified with experimental data and the verification results have been estimated at 14%. Simulation results showed that water desalination has been improved by 30%.

Highlights

Desalination of seawater and brackish water is a common method to relieve the growing shortage of fresh water in many areas of the world [1]
Water salinity is usually removed through conventional solar stills which are the most popular devices utilized in water desalination and have the advantages of low installation cost, simple design and limited maintenances [5]
An experimental investigation has been introduced in this paper using solar chimney to enhance the desalination process, where a modification to the conventional solar stills has been made

Summary

Introduction

Desalination of seawater and brackish water is a common method to relieve the growing shortage of fresh water in many areas of the world [1]. In the context of the continuing rise in energy costs accompanied by the impending depletion of conventional energy resources, the development of desalination technologies associated with the use of renewable energies is a very attractive and promising prospect [2]. This is especially true in the case of solar energy, as the areas with a significant water shortage tend to be those with higher solar radiation. Water salinity is usually removed through conventional solar stills which are the most popular devices utilized in water desalination and have the advantages of low installation cost, simple design and limited maintenances [5]. These stills have low efficiency; the modification in solar desalination techniques remains a very important goal in order to increase the desalination efficiency [6]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion