DESIGN OF SOLAR POWERED DESALINATION PLANT

Shikha Bhuyan1, Chandanjyoti Das2, Mustafa Siraj Barbhuiya2

Abstract – Despite the energy efficiency advances reached during the last few decades, desalination of water
continues to be an intensive fossil energy consumer. Though there exist some desalination technologies based on
renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, but the facilities are not accessible by the people staying in rural
areas. These facilities have quite large area requirement and are expensive when comes to initial capital and
maintenance costs. Thus, majority of population can’t afford a proper means of water purification system in their
households. To combat such problems like impure water and lack of inexpensive water treatment plants we have
decided to design a portable and cost-efficient humidification-dehumidification (HDH) desalination plant using solar
energy for this project.

Key Words: Desalination, Non-renewable energy sources, Solar energy, Cost efficient, Green Energy,
Parabolic trough, Humidifier, Dehumidifier

1. INTRODUCTION
In today’s time about one quarter of the world’s population or about 1.2 billion people, lacks access to sufficient
water of good quality. This problem is only exacerbated as the world population continues to climb, as it has been
shown by studies that water usage increases at twice the rate of population increase. Since 1950, global water use
has tripled and in the next 20 years, it is estimated that humans will require 40% more water than we currently use.
Consequently, water scarcity, lack of accessibility, water quality deterioration, insufficient recharge of ground water
and over extraction of fresh water are all increasing in severity as economic growth leads to population growth, which
requires ever-expanding irrigation for highly productive agricultural systems. This shortage of water is a serious threat
to world peace and security in the near future.
The two major sources of water are Surface water and Groundwater. Surface water is obtained from the sea, river
and freshwater wetland whereas Groundwater is collected from the subsurface pore space of soil and rocks. As the
water gets polluted due to bacteria and dissolved solids it becomes unsafe. Thus, we need cost-efficient, easy to use
and naturally functioning water purifying technology, especially in remote rural areas, where the socio‐ economic
conditions prevent the rapid implementation of these water treatment technology. Underdeveloped rural regions do
not have access to the infrastructure required for large scale desalination plants nor the need for such facilities.
Consequently, there is an apparent need to develop desalination technology which will function off-the-grid and on a
smaller, household scale.
Desalination is defined as a process in which the salts and impurities from the water are removed and is made fit for
consumption, also it takes away mineral components from it. Various methods are used through which desalination is
performed. One of those methods is solar distillation. Solar distillation's basic working principle is the purification of
water by first evaporating it using solar energy and then condensing the same using a cool surface.

2. PROBLEM DEFINITION
The motivation behind the project was to tackle at least one of the problems faced by common people regarding their
daily needs. Water being the essential need of humans is an important natural resource and any solution to solving
the problems faced due to water is welcomed and valued by society. Through our project following were the 5
problems that are being tackled which will benefit the society:
 a) Water Scarcity
Climate change, such as altered weather patterns, deforestation, increase pollution, greenhouse gases and
wasteful use of water causes insufficient supply.
b) Use of Non-renewable resources
Majority of existing desalination plants uses non-renewable sources such as coal and electricity which causes
environmental destruction.
c) Marine Disposal
When the waste content of desalination plants is poured into the water it increases the salinity of sea water as
well as increases the temperature causing harm to aquatic life such as coral reefs.
d) Expensive costing
Most of the desalination plants are expensive and have high maintenance and setup cost. Hence, these benefits
are not affordable by developing regions.
e) Large space requirement
The desalination plants usually take up a lot of space to be setup. Thus, making it difficult for individual
households to setup these plants on their land.

3. OBJECTIVE
Our primary objective is to construct a device which helps in purification of water by desalinating it using Solar
Distillation. Secondly while developing such device, we have to make sure that the user is completely capable of
utilizing the device to its maximum potential. We have to design and develop the system in such a way that it is easy
to use, assemble, and easy to maintain using locally available materials.
The project is primarily aimed at the people whose basic water need aren’t being fulfilled and thereby providing them
with such device that will benefit them with pure water.
a) To produce clean water which can be used not only for drinking purposes but also for other activities like
agriculture, daily chores etc.
b) To use renewable, safe and green energy in desalination processes.
c) To treat the waste produced during desalination, which will help for the betterment of mankind.
d) With the help of non- conventional energy resources and some modifications in the design and assembly of the
structure we can minimize the cost and space.
Within the scope of this project will be the selection and sizing of an appropriate: Desalination unit ‐ Renewable energ
y system ‐ Brine disposal system. Additionally, a cost evaluation of the designed system will be performed
to ensure feasibility of implementation of this design and to show that alternative energy combined with appropriate
small scale desalination technology is cost competitive with large desalination plants powered by conventional
sources.

4. LITERATURE REVIEW
Studying from research paper of “SciVerse ScienceDirect” titling “Water Desalination Technologies” we got to know
about various ways to produce potable water with the help of Desalination Technologies. Primarily two methods are
used around the world for desalination:
 Thermal desalination: The three major, large-scale thermal desalination processes are multistage flash distillation
(MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), and vapor compression distillation (VCD). All of these processes commonly
use fossil fuels as their source of energy.
 Membrane desalination: Membrane desalination systems treat the feed water by using a pressure gradient to
force feed the water through membranes using electric current as source of energy. The three major membrane
processes are electrodialysis (ED), electrodialysis reversal (EDR), and reverse osmosis (RO).
All of these conventional technologies either use non renewable sources of energy or are quite capital intensive.
From the book titled “Thermal Solar Desalination-Methods and Systems” by V. Belessiotis, S. Kalogirou and E.
Delyannis we came to the idea of using Solar energy to achieve our final aim of producing fresh water from feed
water. came to know that recently developed solar desalination techniques help resolve a lot of issues of
conventional techniques. Solar desalination refers to the extraction of pure water from an aqueous solution, which
contains dissolved salts, by using the energy from the sun. There exist two main methods of solar desalination
depending on the way by which solar energy is captured and utilized:
 Solar distillation (SD): This is a procedure that uses solar radiation directly. Incident solar rays are captured in
devices called “solar stills” where solar radiation is absorbed by the water in the basin of the still, which
evaporates the water in the still. The created vapor condenses on the inside transparent colder cover surface of
the still and collected by gutters. It is a Humidification-dehumidification procedure taking place simultaneously in
the same device, the solar still. It is a very low-capacity procedure. Humidification-dehumidification (HDH) is an
alternative of SD, a method that uses separate compartments, called towers or chambers, for the evaporation
(humidification) and condensation (dehumidification) procedures. Solar energy is collected separately mainly by
solar flat plate collectors. It is a low to medium capacity method.
 Solar desalination: In this method, solar radiation is used indirectly by capturing solar energy in a collector field.
Solar driven desalination plants are dual plant techniques consisting of two totally different independent
systems: the solar radiation conversion system and the conventional desalination units.
Capture and conversion systems may be: Solar collectors that convert directly the solar radiation into heat which
is used either as heat to power conventional distillation units such as MSF, MED or is converted to electricity
mainly of medium capacity to fire ED, RO, and MVC units. Photovoltaic (PV) cells, which convert solar energy
directly into electricity, or wind energy, an indirect solar energy system, which may also be used to produce
electricity for desalination purposes. The collectors that can be used are: flat plate (FPC), evacuated tubes (ETC)
for low or medium temperatures or concentrating collectors as parabolic trough (PTC), compound parabolic
collectors (CPC) depending on the desalination method and the corresponding capacity. Central receivers may
provide electricity and high temperature steam or low temperature waste heat for desalination purposes. Thus,
a solar collector field may be used either by heating feed seawater or by generating steam to drive the
conventional distillation plant.
Reviewing all of these technologies we decided to work on HDH process. The research paper by “International Journal
of Modern Engineering Research” titled as “A Solar Desalination System Using Humidification-Dehumidification
Process- A Review of Recent Research” gave us an idea about how actually the system looks and how it works.
Humidification-dehumidification desalination is a thermal desalination cycle that operates similar to the natural water
cycle, where water is evaporated from the oceans by the sun and condenses into fresh water precipitation, which
returns to earth and can be used for drinking. The HDH cycle improves on this principle by separating the evaporation
and condensation processes into different devices thereby recovering the latent heat of evaporation and using it to
heat the seawater. HDH systems are classified under three broad categories. One is based on the form of energy used
such as solar, thermal, geothermal, or hybrid systems. The second classification of HDH processes is based on the
cycle configuration. As the name suggests, a closed-water open air (CWOA) cycle is one in which the air is heated,
humidified and partially dehumidified and let out in an open cycle as opposed to a closed-air open water (CAOW)
cycle wherein the air is circulated in a closed loop between the humidifier and the dehumidifier. The air in these
systems can be circulated by either natural convection or mechanical blowers. The third classification of the HDH
systems is based on the type of heating used: water- or air-heating systems. The performance of the system depends
greatly on whether the air or water is heated.
A report published by “Department of Bioresource Engineering. McGill University” titled as “Design Proposal for a
Renewable Energy Powered Desalination System” gave us idea about the production of concentrate brine
(concentrate stream which contains high salt and dissolved minerals) and the serious negative impacts on ecosystem
due to disposal of brine solutions into sea or underground. Therefore, we tried to tackle this issue by utilizing the
waste brine in most cost effective and environment friendly manner.
We studied different papers and got to know about various kinds of design for a solar powered HDH desalination
plant. A paper published by “BioResource and Agricultural Engineering Department, California Polytechnic State
University” tilted as “Design, Construction and Evaluation of a Multi Layered Solar Distillation Prototype” acquainted
us with the combination that we were in search of. From this paper we actually got the idea of our project model. A
Model which contained combination of a parabolic trough coupled with an evaporator and a condenser unit. A Paper
Published by “International Journal for research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology” titled as “Design and
Fabrication of Solar Desalination Unit” equipped us with all the necessary terms and fundamentals which we were
lacking. The paper provided us the important calculations and terms that should be taken care of.

5. METHODOLOGY
WORKING
Our humidifier-dehumidifier system (HDH) is a closed-air-open-water (CAOW), water heated system. The feed water
is stored in a saline water tank. Using a pump powered by a solar panel, the cold feedwater is pushed through the
copper tube formed as a coil and used as a condenser to enter the dehumidifier. The cooling water flows inside the
coil and reaches the pipe end connected to a flange which then sends the feedwater to a larger diameter absorber
tube of the parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC). The PTSC is made of a reflector frame of parabolic shape with a
silver aluminum reflective sheet. The absorber tube made of copper is enveloped by a transparent glass covering
located at the focal axis of the reflector surface. The absorber tube absorbs the solar radiation concentrated on it
from the reflector surface and boils the feedwater to heat it and produce steam inside the tube. This heated water is
again passed to the smaller diameter copper tube through a flange and pipe end to a humidifier. The humidifier is a
packed bed evaporator tower where the hot feed water is sprayed using nozzles on a cellulose pad which evenly
distributes the water throughout the humidifier cross section. Cold air is passed upward through the bottom of the
humidifier using a fan which is also powered by the solar panel. The air flows in a counterflow direction to the hot
water and gets humidified and heated at the exit of this element. It has highest absolute water content in the loop.
Brine is collected in a tank below the humidifier while the humidified air passes through the upper passage to the
dehumidifier. The dehumidifier is the condensing tower where the hot and humidified air exchanges heat with the
cold feed water. The hot air condenses on the surface of the condenser tubes while cold feedwater gets preheated
before entering the absorber tube. The condensate is collected in a tank below the dehumidifier while the hot air is
again passed through a lower passage to dehumidifier resulting in higher heat recovery from the dehumidifier. The
brine is passed to a evaporation pond made of PVC sheets using a pump which is again powered by the solar panel.
The evaporation pond will evaporate the brine and produce salts which could be the used in sectors like aquaculture,
brine shrimp etc. The pure water collected in the condensate tank can be taken out using a tap provided at the end.
SETUP
In our formulated setup the feed water is stored in a 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 m³ mild steel box and pumped by a pump
of 12 V DC, 0.3 A which is powered by a 12 V, 20 W solar panel through a copper tube of 0.012 m diameter and
0.001 m thickness. The copper tube enters the dehumidifier which is a tower with a cross-section of 0.40 x 0.35
m² and a length of 0.5 m.

6. CAD MODEL

7. COST EVALUATION

8. CONCLUSION