Solar Desalination by Humidification and Dehumidification Process: A model for optimizing the global system

摘要

regions where conventional methods for water supply are costly or unavailable. Humidification and Dehumidification (HD) is one of the most suitable desalination processes to be coupled with solar energy. In this paper, we present a model to optimize the coupling between solar collectors and one HD unit. In fact, several scenarios were investigated in which different combinations between water/air solar collectors and storage systems were considered. The HD system corresponds to a falling film horizontal tube evaporator and condenser. A three dimension model was proposed to describe heat and mass transfer inside exchangers; TRNSYS software was used to model the different solar components. Simulations carried out, hourly, during a typical year allowed to dimension the different components of the systems corresponding to different scenarios. An economic study allowing the evaluation of the produced water cost was integrated to determine the optimal configuration.