Thermoenviroeconomic assessment of upgraded solar desalination with heat pump, various active and passive modifications

Abstract

The current work aimed to provide a feasible and efficient solution for both water shortage and energy utilization challenges. The study targeted enhancing both the production capacity and the thermo-economic performance. In addition, the heat transfer characteristics were focused on augmenting the resulting evaporation and condensation processes. For all these aims, passive and active enhancers were involved. Several passive modifications are included where a V-corrugated basin is used rather than the conditional flat basin. Then, black cotton wick material is used to cover the corrugated basin. For the active enhancers, a 200 L evacuated tube water heater was employed to boost the evaporation rate, a 250 W refrigeration cycle was employed as a condenser, and glass cover cooling was used in order to participate in enhancing the condensation. As a result, production capacity that reaches five times that of conventional designs with high energy storage capacity allows high productivity during sun-off hours. The final case emerging all these additives was the best case exhibiting daily yield, thermal, and exergy efficiencies of 19.75 L/m2, 64.49%, and 6.31%, respectively, which was higher than the basic design by 439.6%, 59.7%, and 81.84%, respectively. Beyond these, the enviroeconomic analysis ensured the effectiveness of the system where the final distilled water price was reduced to 0.0164 $/L. Likewise, cost reduction by 9.4% and the annual carbon dioxide mitigation increased from 1.35 tons/year to 9.31 tons/year. These results are acceptable and can be widely enlarged for large-scale practical field; especially in remote arid, and coastal regions. © 2024 The Institution of Chemical Engineers