Performance amelioration of single basin solar still integrated with V- type concentrator: Energy, exergy, and economic analysis

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 3406 - 3420
• Main Authors: Thakur, Amrit Kumar, Sharshir, Swellam Wafa, Ma, Zhenjun, Thirugnanasambantham, Arunkumar, Christopher, Sathiya Satchi, Vikram, Muthuraman Ponrajan, Li, Shunyang, Wang, Pengfei, Zhao, Wensheng, Kabeel, Abd Elnaby
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Brackish water; Concentrators; Desalination; Earth and Environmental Science; Economic analysis; Economics; Ecotoxicology; Energy efficiency; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental science; Exergy; Fresh Water; High temperature; Life cycles; Research Article; Saline water; Saline Waters; Shape; Shape effects; Sunlight; Thermodynamics; Waste Water Technology; Water; Water depth; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Water Purification; Water yield; Economic analysis; V-shape concentrator; Solar still; Water depth; Energy and exergy analysis
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-10625-2

Solar desalination is one of the most sustainable solutions to produce freshwater from brackish water. The present research work aims to experimentally investigate the effect of a V-shape concentrator integrated with solar still (SS). The V-shape concentrator integrated with the conventional solar still (CSS) is used to supply the saline water at elevated temperature to the basin of SS, which augments the freshwater yield compared to CSS. The experimental investigation was performed at different brackish water depths of 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03 m, respectively. The SS system was evaluated based on water yield, energy, exergy, concentrator efficiency, and economic analysis. The freshwater yield of the solar still integrated with V-shape concentrator (SSVC) was found to be 5.47, 5.10, and 4.89 L/m 2 .day, whereas the yield of the CSS was 3.73, 3.27, and 2.91 L/m 2 .day at the water depths of 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03 m, respectively. The daily energy and exergy efficiency of CSS were 38.5, 33.5, and 29.4% and 1.9, 1.5, and 0.97 % in the case of 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03m water depth , respectively. However, the integration of concentrator significantly augmented the energy efficiency to 57.4, 51.7, and 44.9% and exergy efficiency to 3.8, 3.3, and 2.8% for the respective water depths . Life cycle studies demonstrated that the freshwater cost per liter for CSS and SSVC were 0.0102 $ and 0.0117 $ respectively, at a water depth of 0.01 m. It was concluded that the addition of V-shape concentrator and minimum water depth is useful to augment the energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, and yield of the SS in the very economical way.