Conceptual design and experimental investigation involving a modular desalination system composed of arrayed tubular solar stills

Guo Xie, Licheng Sun, Zhengyu Mo, Hongtao Liu and Min Du

Applied Energy, 2016, vol. 179, issue C, 972-984

Abstract: A novel conceptual design of a low temperature multi-effect desalination (LT-MED) system is presented in this paper. The LT-MED system operates at vacuum pressure and is composed of several modules of tubular solar still (TSS) cells, each of which can independently produce freshwater. To verify the performance of the modules in different stages of the system, an experimental TSS was fabricated and tested under different vacuum pressures and heating conditions from 20 to 80kPa and 100 to 300W, respectively. The results showed that the energy utilization efficiency exceeded 0.7 in most cases, with a maximum value of approximately 0.81, which was nearly double that of a basin still operated at normal pressure. A 5-effect modular MED system for practical application with a capacity of 86kg/d was proposed according to the presented theoretical and experimental work. A structural design and control scheme were also presented. Performance and economic analyses indicated a wide applicability of the system, especially for remote and desert regions.

Keywords: Tubular solar still; Vacuum pressure; Modular; Multi-effect desalination; Low-temperature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261916309989
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:179:y:2016:i:c:p:972-984

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.07.057

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().