Thermodynamic limits to the productivity of passive solar distillators
Vol 5, Issue 2, 2022
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Abstract
Seawater desalination has been studied with interest due to the scarcity of fresh water for human consumption. Solar distillation is an old method; the productivity, energy consumption of the process and the cost of the desalinated water thus obtained depend on the efficiency achieved in each of the stages of these systems. The limited capacity to absorb solar radiation and transform it into useful heat for evaporation, interaction with the surrounding medium, and heat losses restrict the overall efficiency of the thermal process and productivity. Since the energy comes from solar radiation, the maximum productivity of this process will be constrained by the magnitude of the total solar radiation available in an area of the planet due to its geographic location, time of year and local climatic conditions. The processes of this energy will be thermodynamically limited by the heat transfer coefficients achieved in the equipment, the maximum value that the evaporation heat can reach, as long as the losses to the environment by convection and radiation are minimal. Comparative analyses of several proposed models, reported data of distillers, reported data of solar radiation that reach average values of up to 7.2–7.4 kwh/m2 in some regions of the planet are presented and estimates are made for productivity of these equipments that they reach between 6.7 and 6.9 kg/m2 day with a theoretical maximum efficiency of about 0.16 of the total solar radiation.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.24294/tse.v5i2.1537
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