Performance enhancement by integrating concentrated inclined solar still for jaggery production

P. Venkata Sai and K.S. Reddy

Energy, 2024, vol. 307, issue C

Abstract: While unrefined sugar/jaggery consumption has various health benefits, unsustainable and inefficient production processes can negatively impact the environment and health. This study proposes a novel, sustainable approach to jaggery production using solar energy. The primary concentration is done in a VARS system, followed by the secondary concentration in a solar still field at low temperatures to maintain jaggery quality. The study presents experimental observations from the developed inclined solar still with external reflectors to preheat and concentrate the juice. In the absence of sun, the solar still field functions as an evaporation-condensation unit under auxiliary heating. By connecting several solar stills in series, the energy requirements from the PTC field can be reduced. The system is capable of producing a by product of distilled water, amounting to 169.78 kg/day, under varying solar radiation in April at Chennai, India. The overall energy efficiency of the system is 48.31 % under solar load, and 63.05 % under auxiliary heating. The system also leads to enhancement in CO2 mitigations, amounting to around 3134.7 tons of CO2 from dry bagasse combustion. Due to the added revenue from distilled water production, the system's payback period is reduced to as low as 4.89 years, depending on product selling price.

Keywords: Evaporation-condensation; Pre-concentration; Solar energy; Distilled water; Thermodynamic analyses; Net-zero emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224024666
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:energy:v:307:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224024666

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.132692

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

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