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A review of solar energy driven desalination technologies

01-01-2015, Sharon, H., Srinivasa K Reddy

Water plays an important role in all our day to day activities and its consumption is increasing day by day because of increased living standards of mankind. Some regions of the globe are under severe stress due to water scarcity and pollution. The fresh water needs of mankind can be only satisfied if saline water which is available in plenty is converted to potable water by desalination. Desalination industry has shown increased threats of CO2 emissions and severe environmental impacts. Desalination industry can be made sustainable if they are integrated with renewable energy and if proper brine disposal methods are followed. In this review different desalination units integrated with renewable energy with special emphasis given to solar energy is discussed. The problems associated with desalination units and their remedies have been presented. Apart from this some novel methods of desalination process has also been explained. This review will allow the researchers to choose appropriate desalination technology for further development.

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Energy and environmental analysis of multi-effect active vertical solar desalination unit for Indian conditions

01-01-2018, Reddy, K. S., Sharon, H.

Environmental benefits and economic feasibility of evacuated multi-effect vertical solar desalination unit have been estimated for various coastal regions of India. Maximum annual average daily distillate yield and performance ratio of 29.43 kg/m2-d and 4.29 were recorded for Panaji. The unit was found to be capable of mitigating CO2, SO2 and NO emissions in the range of 74.74–137.65 tons, 730.53–989.70 kg and 225.75–404.27 kg, respectively, for considered east coast locations of India. Net CO2, SO2 and NO emission mitigation in the range of 115.01–149.36 tons, 872.07–1073.94 kg and 337.75–438.65 kg, respectively, was noticed for coastal regions in western part of India. Energy payback period of the unit was well below 1.5 yr for all the considered locations. Lowest distillate production cost of 0.79 INR/L and 0.73 INR/L was noticed for east and west coast region of India.

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Performance investigation and enviro-economic analysis of active vertical solar distillation units

01-05-2015, Sharon, H., Srinivasa K Reddy

In this work, performance enhancement of vertical still by active mode operation was carried out using mathematical modeling. The reported model is validated with the mass transfer model that is usually employed for prediction of mass transfer in vertical stills. The two configurations considered for active mode operation are CVDS (cascaded vertical-double slope) still and CVSS (cascaded vertical-single slope) still. The optimum absorber area and gap between condensing and evaporating surface is 4m2 and 0.20m, respectively. Effect of shade on system performance has also been reported. CVDS and CVSS unit produces nearly 25.63% and 13.33% higher distillate than the passive vertical still of similar dimensions. The yield is found to decrease by 10% for every 5% increase in salinity of feed. Maximum yield of 24.06kg/d is recorded for CVDS unit during the month of April. CVDS unit has maximum energy payback period of 2.25 years and can mitigate at least 69.85 tons of CO2 emission during its life time of 20 years and can provide distilled water at 34.3 USD/kL or less. High yield, low water production cost and less ground area occupancy make the unit more feasible and competitive for rural and urban applications.

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Performance analysis of an evacuated multi-stage solar water desalination system

01-03-2012, Srinivasa K Reddy, Kumar, K. Ravi, O'Donovan, Tadhg S., Mallick, T. K.

In this paper, a novel multi-stage evacuated solar desalination system is developed by utilizing latent heat recovery. A transient model is proposed for the solar desalination system. The effect of various design and operating parameters on the system performance is studied to optimize the configuration. The distillate yield increases initially due to enhanced evaporation caused by the presence of a thin layer of water in the stages. The distillate yield decreases with increase in salinity of water due to an increase in ion activity and the reduction of thermodynamically spontaneous change from liquid to vapor. The optimum number of stages, gap between the stages and the supplied mass flow rate for the system were found to be 4, 100mm and 55kg/m 2/day respectively throughout the year. The overall thermal efficiency of the system is found to be 53.9% and 29.6% for the months March and December respectively in India. The maximum yield of 53.2kg/m 2/day is found in March at an operating pressure of 0.03bar. The multi-stage evacuated solar desalination system is a viable option to meet the needs of rural and urban communities. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

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Thermal modeling, characterization, and enviro-economic investigations on inclined felt sheet solar distiller for seawater desalination

01-12-2021, Hilarydoss, Sharon, Delhiraja, Krithika, Srinivasa K Reddy, Ligy Philip, Chand, Drupad, Benny, Belmin

Sustainable desalination can be achieved by adopting renewable energy-based low-cost and low-impact desalting techniques. In this investigation, capability of inclined felt sheet solar distiller in desalting seawater is assessed by evaluating its performance, distillate water quality, economics, and environmental impacts. The distiller with 1.18-m2 aperture area produced around 4.60 L/day of distillate for a cumulative incident solar radiation intensity of about 20.52 MJ/m2 day. Its pollutant removal efficiency is very much superior to other available solar stills reported in literatures. Thermal model developed for estimating distiller’s performance is able to predict its productivity with reasonable accuracy (only 8.0% deviation from experimental values) and was used for estimating distiller’s performance in various seashore locations in India with varying clear days (191 to 246). Yearly mean distillate production and thermal and exergy efficiencies of the proposed distiller range between 3.60 to 4.50 L/day, 36.45 to 42.39%, and 2.85 to 3.65%, respectively, in east seashore locations of India. Moreover, 18.46 tons of CO2, 132.72 kg of SO2, and 54.20 kg of NO emission can be mitigated by adopting the distiller for potable water production. Distillate production cost of inclined felt sheet solar distiller is in the range of 1.15 to 2.29 INR/L and highly depends on the interest rate at which the distiller is financed. Generation of reasonable quantity of high-quality potable water at low cost with huge environmental benefits makes proposed inclined felt sheet solar distiller a suitable option for quenching thirst in coastal and remote locations.