Efficiency Analysis Of The Solarflow - An Innovative Solar-powered Desalination Unit For Treating Brackish Water

摘要

The Solarflow was invented at The Environmental Technology Centre, Murdoch University (the Murdoch ETC) in Perth, Western Australia as part of a doctoral thesis in the early 1990s researching suitable water treatment systems for remote indigenous communities. The design has been modified since this time by its original manufacturer but full commercialisation was not achieved. The current owner Solco Pty Ltd was keen to further improve the efficiency and lower the purchase cost of the unit and engaged the Murdoch ETC to undertake further testing. The Solarflow is a self-contained solar-powered unit capable of producing 400 L/day of high quality drinking water from brackish water via reverse osmosis and requires only 120 W of photovoltaic power. This is achievable due to its innovative energy recovery system. In order to assess the unit's efficiency more accurately the latest high-rate data logging technology from the ResLab laboratory at Murdoch University was employed. This enabled quantification of the Solarflow's unique and complex waveforms of the four key parameters: voltage, current, pressure and flow. The results of this testing are presented in this paper.