Solar Powered Desalination Energy Systems – Fall 2004 Devyn Haycox & Jeff Taisch

Solar Powered Desalination The Worlds Water  97% Sea Water  3% Fresh Water California Coastline er/ocean%20wallpaper.jpg

Solar Powered Desalination The Worlds Fresh Water  77% Ice  22% Ground Water  1% Rivers, Lakes and Streams

Solar Powered Desalination Desalination The separation and removal of ions, salts and other dissolved solids from water.  Heat Based  Membrane Based Evaporation pool (Saudi Arabia) clefs44/clefs4481a.html

Topic  Desalination powered by renewable energy using photovoltaic cells, possibly in conjunction with a fuel cell. Solar Powered Desalination Photovoltaic cells

Motivation  People need access to clean drinking water  1/3 of the world population lacks this access  This is expected to affect 2/3 of the population within 20 years Solar Powered Desalination Water scarcity

Research Question Is it possible to build a small scale low maintenance desalination unit using current methods with power requirements able to be supplied by photovoltaic cells? Solar Powered Desalination Photovoltaic cell

Corollary Questions  What are the power requirements associated with various desalination methods?  What quantity of power can be feasibly supplied by photovoltaic cells?  What are the potential geographic and temporal limitations?  At what scale would various desalination methods be compatible with PV cells while still producing water at a reasonable rate? Solar Powered Desalination

Hypotheses  If we use photovoltaic cells then we can replace conventional power sources using current desalination methods.  If we use photovoltaic cells then we can offset a significant portion of the conventional power requirements using current desalination methods.  Photo voltaic cells are incompatible with current desalination methods. Solar Powered Desalination

Strategies For Investigation Research  Current methods  Energy requirements  Scalability  Intermittent power compatibility  Cost comparison Solar Powered Desalination Coastline 28/ocean-shore.jpg

Solar Powered Desalination Strategies For Investigation Calculations and analyses  Comparison of energy requirements with power output of various PV cells  Array size  Water production rate  Water quality  Effective operational range variations with time  Market analysis

Solar Powered Desalination Strategies For Investigation Conceptual unit design and construction  Schematic  Product design  Prototype construction Example of a desalination schematic

Solar Powered Desalination Current Desalination Research  As fresh water scarcity concerns have risen, research and development in desalination has increased  A large portion of the research is being done in the United States, the Middle East, and Japan  The most commonly used desalination method is multi-flash distillation  The most commonly used solar powered desalination method is passive evaporation

Solar Powered Desalination Current Desalination Research Examples  Boehner discusses solar powered distillation desalination using large scale plants using a low technology intensive system  His system is 100% powered by the sun but is an example of passive distillation

Solar Powered Desalination Current Desalination Research Examples  El-Nashar is a researcher in the UAE working on a solar assisted vacuum freezing ejector adsorption system with a million gallon a day capacity  This is an example of a system in which solar power can only supply a portion of the energy requirements needed.

Solar Powered Desalination Looking Towards The Future  Due to the impending global water scarcity crisis, many human rights organizations are funding research on desalination in order to provide people with adequate drinking water. Everyone need water