Effects of solar geometry and operation period on stability of solar desalination systems: a review

Abstract

The sun is the primary source of life on the earth. The heating effect of the sun provides a more fruitful environment for mankind. In addition, solar energy in the form of thermal radiation has been utilized for solar thermal applications and space heating. With abundant solar radiation, the emergence of the solar desalination has been emerged as a viable solution for water purification by utilizing solar stills. However, solar-powered distillation is relatively a slow process due to the requirement of bulk heating. To suppress thermal conduction to bulk water, various photothermal materials were employed. However, there are many governing parameters which influence the productivity, including solar intensity, cloud, wind, ambient air temperature, humidity, solar absorption of blackened surface, depth of bulk water, feed water type, angle of condensation surface, water film thickness, underneath the condensing surface, and experiment period. Further, systematic and continuous experiments for extended periods are essential for determining the stability and durability of a solar desalination system. The main objective of this article is to review all the experimental studies conducted for two months at minimum up to 1-year duration. In addition, all the SDSs handled in this study further were examined by solar geometrical factors, including day length (DL) and position of the sun or zenith angle (θ z ). As a result, the sunshine hours, day length, and the solar zenith angle play an important role in the water evaporation rate. Lower solar zenith angle and longer day length (more sunshine hours) are desirable for higher water productivity.

Combined effect of grooves and nanoflower structured Co3O4 coating on bamboo wood for highly efficient solar steam generation at indoor and outdoor conditions

“…The ISSG process is buoyant solar absorber material on the water surface for hindering heat travels to the bottom surface of bulk water (Arunkumar et al 2023;Huo et al 2022). It restricts heat losses that occur through conduction, convection and radiation (Mustafa et al 2022).…”

Optimized construction of marble pieces as a thermal storage materials for performance improvement of hemispherical solar distiller

“…Although solar energy represents energy source linked to the meteorological conditions of the sites (Abdelgaied et al, 2021;Hilarydoss et al, 2021;Hassan et al, 2021). Therefore, the exploitation of thermal energy generated from the available solar energy is essential in the desalination of salt water (Nagaraju et al, 2022;Arunkumar et al, 2021;Jeevadason and Padmini, 2022;Ramalingam et al, 2021). However, the distillate yield of solar energy is low, ie, it does not exceed almost 3 liters / day, and therefore not enough to be used in domestic and industrial applications (Dubey and Mishra, 2021;Zhu et al, 2022;Naveenkumar et al, 2022;Agrawal and Singh, 2022).…”