Experimental and Theoretical Study on Mechanical Performance of a Sustainable Method to Simultaneously Generate Power and Fresh Water

Abhijit Date (), Oranit Traisak, Matthew Ward, Eliza Rupakheti, Eric Hu and Hamid Khayyam ()
Additional contact information
Abhijit Date: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3001, Australia
Oranit Traisak: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3001, Australia
Matthew Ward: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3001, Australia
Eliza Rupakheti: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3001, Australia
Eric Hu: School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Docklands 3008, Australia
Hamid Khayyam: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3001, Australia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: Many regions around the world have limited access to clean water and power. Low-grade thermal energy in the form of industrial waste heat or non-concentrating solar thermal energy is an underutilized resource and can be used for water desalination and power generation. This paper experimentally and theoretically examines a thermoelectric-based simultaneous power generation and desalination system that can utilize low-grade thermal energy. The paper presents concept design and the theoretical analysis of the proposed system followed by experimental analysis and comparison with the theoretical estimations. Experiments were carried out at three heat loads 50, 100 and 150 W to achieve varying temperature gradients across thermoelectric generators. During the experiments, thermoelectric generators were maintained at a hot to cold side temperature difference between 20 to 60 °C. The experiments showed that the power generation flux and freshwater mass flux increased with the increase in the thermal energy source temperature. The power flux varied between 12 to 117 W/m 2 of thermoelectric generator area, while freshwater mass flux varied between 4.8 to 23.7 kg/m 2 ⋅h. The specific thermal energy consumption varied between 3.6 to 5.7 MJ/kg of freshwater; this is comparable to the single-stage conventional distillation system.

Keywords: desalination; solar energy; low-grade heat; power generation; thermoelectric generator; energy systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14039/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14039/ (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:14:y:2022:i:21:p:14039-:d:955913

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 ().