Assessing the performance, sustainability, and economic viability of a photovoltaic-based solar desalination system for water scarce regions

• Main Authors: Isah, A.S., Takaijudin, H.B., Mahinder Singh, B.S., Abubakar, U.A., Mohammad, S.J., Oladoyin abimbola, T.
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2023
• Online Access: http://scholars.utp.edu.my/id/eprint/37320/; https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85169046256&doi=10.1016%2fj.jclepro.2023.138528&partnerID=40&md5=8fe4e130b37ac444a980aff1e720c47d
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Petronas

Solar desalination is gaining increasing attention as a sustainable solution to address water scarcity in many regions. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of various aspects of solar desalination systems, including distillate quality, cost estimation, efficiency, and performance comparison. The research involved developing a photovoltaic-based solar desalination system and investigating its distillate quantity and quality, demonstrating its improvement over the conventional system (solar still which comprises a basin and a glass cover) and similar research. A pretreatment system was incorporated to produce a cleaner distillate over conventional solar stills. The results showed an improvement in distillate quantity from 4.7 L/m2 day to 19.7 L/m2 day, for the conventional and modified systems respectively. The pretreatment system enhances the distillate quality with a range of 10�55 in certain parameters. Cost estimation analysis revealed the distillate cost for the traditional and improved systems are 0.041 and 0.091 /L respectively. A comparison with other studies highlighted the remarkable efficiency of the present study with an average improvement of 30. It is recommended that future research should be focused on integrating pre-treatment systems, optimizing distillate cost, improving the performance of the conventional system, exploring efficiency enhancements, conducting comparative studies, performing techno-economic analysis, and scaling up. In conclusion, this work contributes to the understanding of desalination systems that use solar energy, their performance, and cost-effectiveness. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd