Renewable Desalination Research Articles

Direct-drive photovoltaic electrodialysis via flow-commanded current control

Renewable powered, brackish groundwater desalination is an underutilized resource in the developing world, where there are unreliable energy sources and reliance on increasingly saline groundwater. Traditional renewable desalination technologies require sizable energy storage for sufficient water production, leading to increased cost, maintenance and complexity. We theorize and demonstrate a simple control strategy—flow-commanded current control—using photovoltaic electrodialysis (PV-ED) to enable direct-drive (little to no energy storage), optimally controlled desalination at high production rates. This control scheme was implemented on a fully autonomous, community-scale (2–5 m3 d−1) PV-ED prototype system and operated for 6 months in New Mexico on real brackish groundwater. The prototype fully harnessed 94% of the extracted PV energy despite featuring an energy storage to water productivity ratio of over 99% less than the median PV desalination systems in literature. Flow-commanded current control PV-ED provides a simple strategy to desalinate water for resource-constrained communities and has implications for decarbonizing larger, energy-intensive desalination industries.

Selecting renewable desalination using uncertain data: an MCDM framework combining mixed objective weighting and interval MARCOS

Abstract Using renewable energy to drive desalination is increasingly favored to augment water supply, given its cost advantage and energy saving. Divergent renewables can be integrated into different desalination technologies, resulting in the selection of an appropriate renewable desalination being a challenge. This work proposes a multi-criteria decision-making framework to evaluate renewable desalination alternatives from the perspective of multi-dimensional consideration and data uncertainty by developing a mixed objective weighting (MOW) method and extending the method of MARCOS (measurement of alternatives and ranking according to a compromise solution) into uncertain conditions. Mathematical contributions can be found in the two methods, i.e. the MOW improves the objectivity and fairness in the weighting result by considering the dispersions and correlations among the criteria's performances, and interval MARCOS guarantees stability in the ranking result while well preserving the uncertain data. An illustrative case concerning four renewable desalination alternatives is used to test the feasibility of the framework. After implementing comparisons regarding the weighting result and ranking sequence, the effectiveness of the involved methods is confirmed. In conclusion, by fully utilizing objective data concerning renewable desalination while eliminating subjective interference, the developed framework can offer a rational and reliable decision output.

A holistic study on geothermal and solar water desalination system for sustainable development.

This paper shows the comparison of the various conventional technologies used for desalination and the advantages of using renewable energy such as solar and geothermal in place of them. The comparative analyses of the various techniques using geothermal and solar have been included. The efficiency, productivity rate, cost, etc. have been compared. Productivity of multi-effect distillation-thermal vapor compression (MED-TVC) is 75-80 m3/h of freshwater. In comparison to other techniques, electricity generation is high in multi-effect distillation-thermal vapor compression (MED-TVC). It has been observed that renewable energy gives the cheapest solution to the water desalination problems. Despite of having many flaws, RO is considered to be one of the efficient technologies for the seawater desalination. The study shows that solar still is relatively cheaper and more efficient than all the other techniques used. The efficiency of the solar still ranges between 22 and 34%, and in the best conditions, the efficiency also reaches 40% producing 5-7 l/m2/day. The knowledge of the various technologies discussed can be studied, and then further study on the renewable desalination technologies can be carried out. In the future, this technology is going to play an important role as many researches are going on in this field. The geothermal future is going to play an important role in energy production. The efficiency of the desalination system using solar and geothermal energy has higher efficiency and productivity rate than other older techniques and which can be further increased by modification in the system.

Renewable energy powered membrane desalination — review of recent development

Due to current water stress, there is a problem with hygiene and sanitation in many parts of the world. According to predictions from the United Nations, more than 2.7 billion people will be challenged by water scarcity by the middle of the century. The water industry is increasingly interested in desalination of the sea, ocean, and brackish water. Desalination processes are widely classified as thermal or membrane technologies. In the Middle East, thermal desalination remains the primary technology of choice, but membrane processes, for example reverse osmosis (RO), have evolved rapidly and in many other parts of the world are currently even surpassing thermal processes. The purpose of this paper is to review the renewable energy source, the technology, desalination systems, and their possible integration with renewable energy resources and their cost. This article suggests that the most practical renewable desalination techniques to be used are the solar photovoltaic integrated RO desalination process, the hybrid solar photovoltaic-wind integrated RO desalination process, the hybrid solar photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) integrated RO desalination process, and the hybrid solar photovoltaic-thermal effect distillation (PVT-MED) desalination process. However, intensive research is still required to minimize the cost, reduce the heat loss, enhance the performance, and increase the productivity.

Simulation Influence of Compressor 3 Pressure and Cyclone Pressure on Specific Energy Consumption And Cooling Heat In Renewable Desalination

The problem of freshwater is an issue that has been hot for discussion for decades. The number of industries and the increasing population in the world has caused the need for clean water to increase drastically. This scarcity occurs because 97.7% of the water available on earth contains salt. Only 2.3% contains no salt, and 99.5% of the amount is ice, groundwater, and the atmosphere. With a large percentage of seawater, water needs for human survival can be met by using the desalination method. In this study using a throttling valve and utilizing cold water (secondary product) as a refrigerant to cool the room. This research will also discuss how specific energy consumption and cooling heat are affected by compressor pressure and cyclone pressure to prove how capable and efficient the renewable desalination method is in producing aquadest water, which is expected to help water availability to meet water needs. The simulation results obtained The optimum value of the system specific energy consumption is 287.90 kJ / kg with a compressor pressure value of 10 kPa and a cyclone temperature value of 4 ° C. The optimal value of system cooling heat is 51.01 kW with a compressor pressure value. At 10 kPa and a cyclone temperature value of 2 ° C. The effect of the cooling heat value significantly affects the specific energy consumption required for this system.

Perspective of renewable desalination by using membrane distillation

Perspective of renewable desalination by using membrane distillation

Multi-layered spatial methodology for assessing the technical and economic viability of using renewable energy to power brackish groundwater desalination

Multi-layered spatial methodology for assessing the technical and economic viability of using renewable energy to power brackish groundwater desalination

Investigation of off-grid photovoltaic systems for a reverse osmosis desalination system: A case study

Investigation of off-grid photovoltaic systems for a reverse osmosis desalination system: A case study

A Review of the Water Desalination Systems Integrated with Renewable Energy

A Review of the Water Desalination Systems Integrated with Renewable Energy

Development of a flexible tool for the integrated techno-economic assessment of renewable desalination plants

Development of a flexible tool for the integrated techno-economic assessment of renewable desalination plants

Experimental evaluation of hybrid solar still using waste heat

Experimental evaluation of hybrid solar still using waste heat

A new visual library for modeling and simulation of renewable energy desalination systems (REDS)

A new visual library for modeling and simulation of renewable energy desalination systems (REDS)

Renewable desalination: a methodology for cost comparison

Renewable desalination: a methodology for cost comparison