article · Processes
Access to clean water remains an urgent global challenge. A solar-powered desalination system combining a parabolic trough solar collector, an evacuated pipe, a separation unit, and a condenser offers a functional approach to producing fresh water from saline sources. Saline water flows through the evacuated pipe, gets heated by solar energy, separates into steam, and condenses into clean distillate. Tests examining flow rates between 6 and 60 litres per hour revealed that lower flow rates yielded higher water temperatures, reaching up to 92 °C. The optimal flow rate of 7.5 litres per hour produced 44.7 litres of fresh water during daytime hours with an average daily efficiency of 59.6%. Incorporating graphite nanoparticles further increased the evacuated pipe productivity by approximately 11.86%, while the production cost reached 0.0085 dollars per litre at the optimal flow rate.
Freshwater shortages impact communities worldwide, demanding affordable and sustainable purification methods. Utilizing direct solar thermal energy alongside nanomaterials to purify saline water provides an effective alternative to energy-intensive desalination plants. Demonstrating low operational costs and solid daytime yields helps lower barriers to clean drinking water in sunny, water-stressed regions.
The research represents an applied and experimentally tested technology suitable for decentralised solar desalination. It could serve small-scale clean water suppliers, off-grid communities, and agricultural users needing affordable freshwater. With an identified production cost of 0.0085 dollars per litre, the direct solar conversion setup demonstrates potential economic feasibility, though commercialisation would require long-term durability tests and manufacturing scale-up.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
As is widely known, the issue of freshwater scarcity affects practically all people, and all are looking for innovative and workable ways to attempt to solve this issue. In this work, a novel method of desalination is proposed. The proposed system consists of a solar collector (PTSC), evacuated pipe (EP), condenser (CU), and separation unit (SU). The working principle of the system is heating the feed saline water using the PTSC and EP and controlling the water flow rate to control the output conditions of the EP. The produced vapor is therefore separated from salty water using the SU. In addition, the generated steam is condensed into the CU to produce a freshwater distillate. Consequently, the effect of solar radiation on the affecting temperatures was tested. In addition, the effect of using different water flow rates (6, 7.5, 10, 20, 40, and 60 L/h) inside the EP on the system productivity was investigated. The primary findings of this work may be highlighted in relation to the experiments conducted. At midday, when ultraviolet irradiance reached its highest, the EP’s water flow entrance and outflow had the largest temperature differential. In addition, the lower the water flow rate inside the EP, the higher the water temperature, the higher the evaporation rate of the system, and the greater the freshwater productivity of the system. At 6 L/h, the water’s highest temperature was 92 °C. Moreover, the best performance of the system was obtained at 7.5 L/h, where the freshwater production and average daily effectiveness of the distillate process were 44.7 L/daytime and 59.6%, respectively. As well, the productivity of EP was augmented by around 11.86% when using graphite nanoparticles. Additionally, the distilled freshwater from the system operating at the flow rate of 7.5 L/h costs 0.0085 $/L.
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DOI: 10.3390/pr11061734
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