Performance assessment of hemispherical solar distillers integrated with the red bricks filled with cement as natural thermal storage materials

This article presents the relationship between energy matrices of a dual slope solar desalting unit integrated with a number (N) of photovoltaic thermal flat plate collectors (NPVTFPC‐DSU) and the effect of variation in mass flow rate and N for a sustainable solar distillation. Although extensive research has been done on dual slope active solar desalting unit, however, the area of the impact of variation in and N on energy matrices of NPVTFPC‐DSU remains still untouched. This study is an attempt to bridge the gap that has been highlighted. An exhaustive analysis is performed considering all types of climatic situations of New Delhi, India. MATLAB is used to calculate the overall energy, exergy, and energy matrices for NPVTFPC‐DSU based on fundamental equations and relevant data as inputs. Concludingly, it is evident that there is a decrease in the value of energy payback period and life cycle conversion efficiency as the value of increases at a given value of N for ≤ 0.10 kg s−1. For kg s−1, the values remain constant. For NPVTFPC‐DSU, 6 and 10 are the best and most favorable values of N as far as energy‐based energy matrices and exergy‐based energy matrices are concerned.

Impact of variation in input parameters on energy matrices of dual slope active solar desalting unit

Krishna,

Singh,

Dwivedi

et al. 2024

Comparative energy metrics and annual efficiency analyses of CPC‐ETC integrated single slope solar desalting unit

Singh,

Agarwal,

Singh

2024

This paper deals with the investigation of N identical compound parabolic concentrator evacuated tubular collector included single slope solar desalting unit (N‐CPC‐ETC‐SSU) by incorporating energy metrics for solving contemporary issue of water scarcity in the society. It will contribute to the sustainable development of society and recede the dependency on fossil fuels, too. The energy metrics investigation is important for energy system because it talks about the feasibility of the system. The methodology consists of getting fundamental equations from energy balance equations. All fundamental equations with relevant data are fed to the code developed in MATLAB followed by the computation of overall energy and exergy. All types of climatic situations have been considered for the analysis. Data required for the same are accessed from IMD, Pune, India. The energy payback period, energy production factor, and life cycle conversion efficiency for N‐CPC‐ETC‐SSU have been calculated at eight number of collectors, 0.012 mass flow rate and 0.14 m water depth. Results of N‐CPC‐ETC‐SSU have been compared with results of SSU included with ETCs. Concludingly, energy payback period is lower by 6.41%, energy production factor is higher by 6.25% and exergy‐based life cycle conversion efficiency is higher by 96.39% for N‐CPC‐ETC‐SSU than N‐ETC‐SSU.

Conical cement fins efficacy on single slope solar distillers performance—Experimental investigation with economic analysis

Attia,

Abdelgaied,

Harby

2024

This article presents an effective, economical, and health‐safe experimental work to improve the solar distiller's performance using cement conical fins. To demonstrate the effectiveness of conical cement fins, two distillers were designed and built, in the first distiller; a basin was made from cement (SSSD‐CB). In the second distiller, the uniformly distributed cement conical fins are installed in the basin (SSSD‐CB&CCF). The results presented that the cumulative water produced from SSSD‐CB and SSSD‐CB&CCF reached 3460 and 4750 mL/m2 day, respectively. These results indicated that the conical cement fins represent a good design that improves the yield by 37.28%. Also, the average improvement in the exergy and energy efficiencies for SSSD‐CB&CCF reached 71.24% and 37.3%. The economic analysis showed that using conical cement fins reduced distilled costs by 25.38%.