Desalination, Vol.430, 165-179, 2018
Enhancing the performance of a solar driven hybrid solar still/humidification-dehumidification desalination system integrated with solar concentrator and photovoltaic panels
A new solar driven desalination system is developed using hybrid solar still/two effects humidification-dehumidification desalination system combined with solar concentrator and two thermally cooled photovoltaic panels. The system performance is investigated under different operating conditions including varying the basin water height, circulating air mass flow rate, and solar concentration ratio. A transient mathematical model based on the conservation of mass and energy equations for the system components is developed and the predicted results are validated using the available experimental and numerical data. The results indicated that the system productivity decreases with the increase of the basin height and the circulating air mass flow rate. Integrating the photovoltaic panels along with solar concentrator leads to a significant increase in the fresh water yield at high concentration ratio. The maximum temperature of photovoltaic panels, electrical output power and efficiency of both panels are presented. Accordingly, selection of the optimal operating conditions is developed within the allowable maximum basin water temperature (to avoid a potential scale formation) and the maximum photovoltaic panels' temperature.