Thermodynamical research of using solar energy for desalination of seawater

Abstract

Many regions of the world face the problem of saline water. Water desalination processes, which require significant energy consumption, are a common solution to produce drinking water. This study evaluated the influence of the following process operational parameters on the energy consumption of seawater reverse osmosis systems: water salinity, permeate recovery ratio, membrane performance, and feed water temperature. Optimal operational conditions for the theoretical minimum energy consumption were determined with experiments by varying water qualities and operational parameters. In order to further reduce energy consumption a reverse osmosis system was integrated with a photovoltaic solar system and a pilot photovoltaic reverse osmosis system was built and tested. The results obtained from this study indicated that even though a solar photovoltaic system incurs a huge initial capital investment, it will yield significant benefits in the long run of the reverse osmosis operational period.