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State of the Art of Hybrid Solar Stills for Desalination

  • Review Article-systems Engineering
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Abstract

The pressure on freshwater sources increases with population, industrial, and agriculture growth. Solar desalination methods are among the technologies that show great potential for freshwater production through evaporation and condensation processes. Therefore, desalination enhancement may be achieved through enhanced evaporation, condensation, or both processes. The problems facing desalination by traditional solar stills are the low efficiency and low solar yield, around 4 L/m2·day. Many kinds of research have been implemented to enhance the yield of the solar still system at a reasonable cost. The objective of the current article is to critically review and compares the solar yield, efficiency, and production cost of the various hybrid solar desalination systems. Despite their many reviews on solar stills, this review differs from previous reviews as it focuses on the hybrid enhancement methods of solar stills. It is found that some hybrid systems achieved 20 L/m2· days by integration with thermal energy storage, external heat sources, or a combination of external heat sources and thermal energy storage. The performance of each hybrid approach is evaluated to get insight into which combination is most effective. The freshwater production cost of the hybrid solar stills is included in the analysis as a performance indication factor.

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Abbreviations

SS, SSs:

Solar still, solar stills

DS:

Double slope

PTC:

Parabolic through collector

TES:

Thermal energy storage

PCM:

Phase change material

CSS:

Conventional solar still

CTSS:

Conventional tubular solar still

TC:

Total cost ($)

TSS:

Tubular solar still

CF:

Fixed charge ($)

CM:

Maintenance cost ($)

CO:

Operation cost ($)

CPL:

Cost per liter ($/L/m2)

CPC:

Compound parabolic collector

ETC:

Evacuated tube collector

\({T}_{\mathrm{amb}}\) :

Ambient temperature

\({\dot m}_{\mathrm{ev}}\) :

Mass of evaporated water

\({\eta }_{\mathrm{Thermal}}\) :

Thermal efficiency

\({h}_{\mathrm{fg}}\) :

Evaporation latent heat

\({A}_{\mathrm{collection}\,\mathrm{system}}\) :

Area of the collection system (external)

\({A}_{\mathrm{b}}\) :

Area of the basin

\({I}_{\mathrm{s}}\) :

Solar radiation intensity (W/m2)

T w :

Temperature of water

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge PETRONAS—Malaysia, for providing financial support under the funded project YUTP—FRG, CS: 015LC0-404. Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS is acknowledged for the technical and logistic support to conduct the research and the production of the article.

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  1. Mechanical Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Malaysia

    Hussain H. Al-Kayiem, Mohamed M. Mohamed & Syed I. U. Gilani

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  1. Hussain H. Al-Kayiem
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Correspondence to Hussain H. Al-Kayiem.

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Al-Kayiem, H.H., Mohamed, M.M. & Gilani, S.I.U. State of the Art of Hybrid Solar Stills for Desalination. Arab J Sci Eng 48, 5709–5755 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-022-07516-8

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