Performance Of Solar Desalination System Research Articles

Experimental and analytical examinations of a single-glazed solar still desalination with a spray-feeding water system with an artificial neural network

Using solar stills to desalinate salt water effectively provides clean water in remote areas at affordable prices. It is well-established that a crucial factor in enhancing the efficiency of solar desalination systems is increasing brackish water's surface evaporation rate by minimizing surface tension and boosting thermal energy. However, recent studies and proposed ideas indicate a limited and insufficient focus on this aspect. As a response, this research introduces a novel approach to raising the temperature of saline water. This is achieved through a system that involves simultaneous saline water spraying and circulation, affecting all factors and effectively reducing the surface evaporation rate. This approach impacts factors influencing surface evaporation rates and offers advantages such as low thermal inertia, reduced surface tension, and enhanced thermal energy within the desalination system. Therefore, the main goal of this study will be to improve the performance of the solar desalination system through circulating preheated salt water spray and using artificial neural networks and machine learning algorithms to obtain the function of predicting the amount of fresh water produced. The results of this study show that the evaporative heat transfer coefficient of the introduced system is significantly larger than that of the conventional solar still unit, with an average difference of about 43.98%. Also, the results of daily water output in both systems show a significant increase and superiority of 28.75% in freshwater production for the modified system. Also, the efficiency of the improved system is 65.18% higher than that of the passive solar distillation system, and the cost per liter was 0.059 ($/L/m2). The results of this study highlight the effectiveness of the saltwater spraying technique in enhancing the performance of solar desalination systems, making it a valuable prospect for future industrial applications in desalination systems and into energy systems for smart cities as a sagacious strategy towards clean and sustainable process.

Applications of different types of heat pipes in solar desalinations: A comprehensive review.

Desalination processes are energy consuming and it is required to apply clean energy sources for supplying them to prevent environmental issues. Solar energy is one of the attractive clean energy sources for desalination. In solar thermal desalination systems, different thermal components could be used for heat transfer purpose. In solar desalination technologies, heat pipe as efficient heat transfer mediums could be employed to transfer absorbed and/or stored thermal energy. The objective of this study is to review applications of heat pipes in solar energy desalination systems. Regarding the performance dependency of these thermal systems on the variety of factors, scholars have investigated these systems by consideration of the effect of different influential factors. Based on the results, it is concluded that use of heat pipes could lead to proper performance of solar desalination systems. Aside from direct transfer of absorbed heat from solar radiation, heat pipes can be applied in the storage units of solar desalination systems to keep the systems active in night-hours or low solar irradiation conditions. The overall performance of the solar desalinations systems with heat pipes can be influenced by some factors such as filling ratio and operating fluid that affect the performance of heat pipes.

Design of a solar air heater for a direct-contact packed-bed humidification–dehumidification desalination system

The performance of solar desalination systems based on a humidification–dehumidification (HDH) approach is significantly enhanced by preheating the air entering the evaporator. To estimate this potential benefit, we present an analysis of integrating a novel solar air heater (SAH) with an HDH system. The combination of both units leads to intriguing applications, such as incorporating these systems into buildings. A model of the solar thermal system is developed, and its predictions are validated with experimental data. The SAH model is combined with a previously validated model of an HDH. This allows us to estimate the performance of a combined SAH/HDH system under different environmental conditions and to evaluate the annual water treatment capacity at various sites around the world. Simulations suggest that a system with a 3.5 m2 solar collector in arid regions (Middle-East, north of Africa, south-west of the USA, East of South America), has the potential to treat 30 tons of water and reduce the CO2 emission by 150 kg annually.

Tilted 3D evaporator with high-performance salt rejection for seawater desalination

Salt accumulation severely impacts the performance of solar desalination systems and hinders their long-term application in practice. Herein, we report a tilted 3D evaporator with high-performance salt-rejecting feature based on carbon nanodots (CDs)/luffa composite. The tilted 3D evaporator was designed by immersing one edge of CDs/luffa composite in a seawater tank and tilting at an angle to the horizontal plane. Upon solar irradiation, seawater was transferred through CDs/luffa composite at the bottom surface and wicked to the top surface for evaporation. Meanwhile, salt at the top surface was rejected back to the bottom surface and further taken away from the evaporator by the flowing seawater, thus avoiding salt accumulation for long-term solar desalination. Furthermore, the evaporator demonstrated effective thermal localization and absorption of environmental energy, possessing high evaporation rates of 2.05 and 1.50 kg m−2 h−1 when evaporation with water and real seawater, respectively (under one sun irradiation). Our study provides a promising strategy for salt rejection and enhancing the performance of solar desalination in practice.

Energy, Exergy, Economic, Environmental, Exergoenvironmental, Exergoeconomic, and Enviroeconomic Analysis of Photovoltaic/Thermal System with Double‐Fan Arrangement for Effective Condensation and Evaporation: An Experimental Approach

Water is one of the basic needs for all living and nonliving things. It is important to sustain the available water resources effectively for future generations. A lot of studies are employed already to improve the performance of solar desalination systems rather than conventional methods. Subsequently, an experimental approach is proposed with energy, exergy, economic, environmental, exergoenvironmental, exergoeconomic, and enviroeconomic performance of photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) solar distillation system using two methods to enhance the fresh water yield production at feasible cost. First is the conventional solar still (CSS) with PV and second is PV with double fan solar still (DFSS) with optimized running time of the double fan, which increases the productivity of the solar distillation system. The results show that average daily energy and exergy efficiency of the system improve with DFSS (19.98%, 1.36%) than CSS (11.74%, 0.36%). The daily yield productivity of CSS is 1.618 L m−2 and is increased as 2.482 L m−2 with DFSS. Average cost of water yield production is also reduced with DFSS and estimated as 0.018$, 0.016$, and 0.015$ for the lifetime of 15, 20, and 30 years for CSS and 0.014, 0.013, and 0.012$ for DFSS. Overall, the proposed methodology shows promising results than the conventional approach.

A novel reduced nano- phase change material based absorber for enhancing the water productivity and performance of solar desalination system

In present research work, two different types solar stills - conventional solar still and advanced solar still (ASS) have been studied. To enhance the yield (productivity) of ASS a nano-phase change material (ZnO-PCM) has been used. Conventional and advanced solar still performance is compared under same climatological conditions in two investigation sets. Maximum thermal efficiency and improved yield are obtained as 51% and 6600 ml/m2 for ASS-ZnO-PCM, respectively. Thus, cmulative yield of ASS-ZnO/PCM (6600 ml/m2) was nearly 113% more than conventional SS (3090 ml/m2.day). As a result, the productivity of ASS-ZnO/PCM has increased by about 36% employing the PCM.

Experimental investigation of performance of cascade solar water desalination system equipped with internal reflector and concave steps

BackgroundProduction of fresh water with desalination techniques has become one of the most important issues in the world. MethodsIn this paper, the efficiency of the concave stepped solar water desalination device equipped with the internal reflector is investigated experimentally. Two solar desalination devices are fabricated, which are the same in terms of dimensions, number of steps, and working and environmental conditions. The only difference between them is the shape of the steps. In one device, steps with a flat bottom with an internal reflector are used and in another device, steps with a concave bottom and an internal reflector are used. Two solar desalination devices are tested simultaneously to evaluate the effect of the shape of the steps on the efficiency of the desalination device. All tests were carried out in Semnan city with geographical coordinates N 33.35, E 53.230, located in Iran. Significant findingsThe results indicated that the amount of fresh water generated by the cascade solar water desalination systems with the flat steps and the modified concave steps are 466 and 621 cc/m2, respectively. The highest performance of solar desalination system occurs at 14:00. In addition, the modified cascade solar desalination system with the concave steps has about 25% higher efficiency as compared to that with the flat steps. The economic analysis is also done for both desalination systems. The cost analysis shows that the production costs for the devices with the flat steps and modified concave steps are 0.03 and 0.028 $/l/m2, respectively.

Effect of different aluminium oxide based nanofluid concentrations on the efficiency of solar water desalination system

In this study, the effect of different concentration of the Aluminium oxide-based nanofluid on the performance of Solar Desalination system was discussed. The Aluminium Oxide was used in different concentrations 1%, 2% and 6% on weight basis. The flow rate was also varied and its effect on the system efficiency was discussed. The nanofluid was compared with the water and there was improvement occurred in the efficiency during variation of incident radiation. With an increase in the concentration of Aluminium oxide nanoparticles, improvement in the efficiency was attained. More efficiency was attained at 6% nanoparticles addition with compared to 1% and 2%. With an increase in mass flow rate of the fluid, the nanofluid also showed better performance in terms of improvement in the efficiency.

Saline water desalination using solar energy: performance analysis and implementation barriers

Solar water desalination system is one of the alternatives for supplying fresh water. On the other hand, some people are reluctant to use and rely on water produced by the system. Also, there are other barriers to the adoption of this system in Indonesia. This research aimed to conduct a preliminary study on the performance of solar desalination systems and identify factors that hindered its implementation. The methodology applied in this study consist of two approaches. First, the desalination system performance is determined by the quantity of freshwater produced and the quality of feed water, distilled water, and brine compared to Indonesia’s water quality standard. Second, the identification of implementation barriers was evaluated in the structural analysis method using MICMAC (the Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification) software. The performance analysis result shows low efficiency based on desalinated water produced, which ranges from 2.59% up to 9.67%. The water quality parameters of pH, turbidity, TDS, chloride, Fe, and hardness met the Indonesian water quality standard. The factor of “uncertainty of subsidies,” “niche market,” “poor solar energy data,” and “lack of policy/regulatory framework” were determined as critical barriers which have the most significant influence and highest independence.

Performance analysis of hybrid solar desalination system using ETC and CPC

This paper present analytical and experimental analysis of hybrid solar desalination system using evacuated tube collector (ETC) and compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) to obtain the maximum amount of soft water for drinking and industrial purposes. In this paper, thermal performance of hybrid system with varying heights between ETC and CPC and flow rates are investigated with single effect boiling method. Water is used as working fluid for experimentation and tested for different climatic conditions of Pune city (located in western region in the Maharashtra state, India). The experimental set-up of thermosiphon solar water system mainly consists of ETC and CPC, condenser, inlet water tank, outlet collection jar etc. The CPC (reflector) is used to improve thermal performance of solar desalination system. Further, thermal performance of said solar desalination system has been improved with aluminium foil as CPC (reflector) material. From obtained results, it is concluded that for the climatic conditions of selected location, solar (ETC + CPC) hybrid desalination system could produce 1.5–2 l of fresh water per day and purity is validated as per ISO 12500-2012.

Assessing the performance of solar desalination system to approach near-ZLD under hyper arid environment

The aim of this study was to investigate the performance of a solar desalination system using three different types of feedwater to reach near zero liquid discharge (ZLD) under hyper arid environment. Solar still was used to desalinate seawater (SW), groundwater (GW), and agricultural drainage water (DW). The influence of meteorological parameters on the performance of the solar still was investigated. The system productivity (MD), operational recovery ratio (ORR), and thermal efficiency (ηth) were determined during the desalination process. Some physicochemical properties of the feed, brine, and distilled water were measured such as total dissolved solids (TDS), electrical conductivity (EC), pH, density (ρ), and color. The performance was in direct proportion to solar radiation and ultraviolet index. The average ranges of the MD, ORR, and ηth were 0.56 L/m2/h, 36.77, and 52.38%, respectively, for all waters. The final recovery ratios were 68, 93, and 95.6% for SW, GW, and DW, respectively. Statistical empirical models were found to predict the system performance with a range of R2 was 88–96%. One major output of this research is the assessment of the solar still system during the desalination process for near-ZLD, which adds a new perspective to system design, analysis, and modeling of the possible use of solar energy in ZLD desalination process. On the other hand, more studies are required for the continuous pilot production system, modeling for commercial production, in addition to full economic evaluation of the system.

Experimental Investigations on Performance Evaluation of a Single Basin Solar Still Using Different Energy Absorbing Materials

Energy and water are necessity of mankind that influences the development of any nation. Today, the production of fresh drinking water is a serious problem. Fresh water resources are becoming scarce due to population growth and pollution caused by industrial waste. Drinking water shortage is expected to become one of the biggest problems faced by world.With the continuous increase in the energy shortage and environmental pollution to reduce the mismatch between energy supply and energy demand, solar energy is one of the technologies which could be used as an alternative to the fossil fuel energy. Solar energy technologies are rapidly growing industries because it is one of the most reliable and readily available energy sources in the world. In most cases, the direct use of sea water is not possible because it is made up of different types of salts. Distillation is a well known thermal process for water purification and most importantly water desalination. Most of the conventional water distillation processes are highly energy consuming and require fossil fuels as well as electric power for their operation. Solar energy can be used to produce fresh water directly in a solar still or indirectly where the thermal energy from a solar energy system is supplied to solar still. One way to improve the energy utilization is to store the energy during sunshine times of higher solar incidence for later use of necessary needs. Efficient storage technologies are required to store energy for twenty four hours cycles to meet energy demand. Energy storage would enable to power generation for night periods and it helps match the generation and demand peaks.Thermal energy storage (TES) involves the reversible change of enthalpy of a storage material. It is especially thermodynamically attractive and economically promising technology. Sensible heat storage is associated with the temperature increase of the storage medium. A number of efforts have been made to develop and improve the performance of solar desalination systems. Present work is focused on potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7), Magnesium Sulphate Hepta Hydrate (MgSO4 7H2O) and sodium acetate (CH3COONa) phase change materials are energy absorbing materials.

The research on thermal and economic performance of solar desalination system with evacuated tube collectors

In this paper, a solar desalination system with evacuated tube collectors (ETCs) and low-temperature multi-effect distillation (LT-MED) is developed. It solves the problem of shortage of fresh water, while it also avoids the consumption of non-renewable energy resource and environmental pollution. The system configurations designed consist of ETCs, heat storage tank, flash tank, multi-effect distillation, electrical heating and cooling, and so on. Mathematical and economic models are established based on mass and energy conservation, and the thermal and the economic performance of the solar desalination system is analyzed by utilizing MATLAB. In this paper, the fresh water cost reduces with both the increasing of the area of ETCs and collector outlet water temperature. Recommendations given in this paper could be helpful in future initiatives regarding the research and development of this promising solar desalination technology.

The research on thermal and economic performance of solar desalination system with salinity-gradient solar pond

Conventional seawater desalination technology could solve the problem of fresh water shortage, but consumes a large amount of fossil fuel and causes the environmental problems such as global warming, acid rain, etc. On account of this, solar desalination is one of the promising methods. Mathematical and economic models of solar desalination system with salinity-gradient solar pond (SP) which both supplies the energy and store energy in system are established. A Visual Basic and A MATLAB computer programs of solar-powered low temperature multi-effect distillation (LT-MED) processes are developed. It is researched that the effect of the temperature of stream entering into the external heat exchanger and the temperature of stream returning to SP on thermal and economic performance of solar desalination system. The conclusions are helpful to the design and operation of solar desalination plant.

06/01362 Improving the performance of solar desalination systems: Abdel-Rehim, Z. S. and Lasheen, A. Renewable Energy, 2005, 30, (13), 1955–1971

06/01362 Improving the performance of solar desalination systems: Abdel-Rehim, Z. S. and Lasheen, A. Renewable Energy, 2005, 30, (13), 1955–1971

Improving the performance of solar desalination systems

Two modifications for solar desalination systems are presented. The first modification, using a packed layer that installed in the bottom of the basin to increase the efficiency of the still. A packed layer is formed from glass balls which is considered as simple thermal storage system. The second modification, using rotating shaft installed close to the basin water surface. The target of using the rotating shaft to break the boundary layer of the basin water surface, thus increasing the water vaporization and condensation, the performance of the present solar desalination system may also be increased. The numerical analysis presented the equations of the direct coupling of the selected PV-solar panel, DC-motor and inverter for small PV-system. The characteristics of PV array and the DC-motor are presented for the specific PV–DC power. The performance of the two modified solar stills and the conventional one is compared. Three experiments were carried out using the climate conditions of Cairo site, Egypt. Transient temperatures of the two modified solar stills and the conventional one are measured from sunrise to sunset with the same operating parameters. The energy equations that governed the present solar desalination system are presented. Energy absorbed by glass cover, basin water, packed layer and the required power of the rotating shaft are calculated to obtain the water productivity and efficiency of the present systems. The results show that the two modifications enhanced the performance of the solar desalination system. The efficiency of the modified solar desalination system using packed layer thermal energy storage was increased by 5% at May, 6% at June, and 7.5% at July, while it was increased by 2.5% at May, 5% at June, and 5.5% at July for the modified one using rotating shaft and PV-system.