Humidification-Dehumidification Desalination System Powered by Simultaneous Air-Water Solar Heater

Sadam Hussain Soomro, Ravichandran Santosh, Chul-U Bak, Woo-Seung Kim and Young-Deuk Kim
Additional contact information
Sadam Hussain Soomro: Department of Mechanical Convergence Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Korea
Ravichandran Santosh: ERICA Industry-University Cooperation Foundation, Hanyang University, 55 Hanyangdaehak-ro, Sangnok-gu, Ansan 15588, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Chul-U Bak: ERICA Industry-University Cooperation Foundation, Hanyang University, 55 Hanyangdaehak-ro, Sangnok-gu, Ansan 15588, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Woo-Seung Kim: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, 55 Hanyangdaehak-ro, Sangnok-gu, Ansan 15588, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Young-Deuk Kim: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, 55 Hanyangdaehak-ro, Sangnok-gu, Ansan 15588, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-23

Abstract: A humidification–dehumidification (HDH) desalination system requires thermal energy to desalt seawater. An environmentally friendly approach to obtain thermal energy is to utilize solar energy using solar collectors. Either seawater or air (or both) are typically preheated by HDH desalination systems before these fluids are conveyed to the humidifier column. Compared with preheating only air or water, preheating both is preferred because improved performance and higher productivity are achieved. Many researchers have proposed dual preheated HDH systems utilizing two separate solar heaters/collectors for simultaneous air–seawater preheating. In this study, dual-fluid preheating is achieved using a single solar collector. The proposed simultaneous air–water solar heater (SAWSH) is a modified flat-plate collector designed for simultaneously preheating air and seawater before the fluids reach the humidifier. A thermodynamic study was conducted using formulated mathematical models based on energy and mass conservation principles. Then, the dual-fluid heating HDH system is compared with HDH systems in which only air or only water is heated. This work found that the former outperformed the latter. The daily and monthly performance levels of the system in terms of the outlet temperatures of air and water, distillate rate, and gain output ratio were calculated using the weather data of the hot and humid climate of Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: humidification–dehumidification; desalination; solar collector; air heating; water heating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13491/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13491/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13491-:d:696108

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().