Modeling of Solar-Powered Desalination

Abstract

The scarcity, global, and local demand of pure water for SDGs become prominent issue. The global emissions of CO2 and GHGs have put pressure to develop the solar-powered desalination plants. This article discussed the selection of site for the solar thermal desalination in Pakistan keeping the eye on sustainability and modeling and cost analysis of single solar stills technology at Lyari River in Karachi, Pakistan. Pakistan is among the water-deficit countries having 35% of population having lack of pure drinkable water. The plenty of solar irradiance and saline water in Pakistan make it very favorable for solar-powered desalination. The solar stills technology is one of the best technologies to meet the local demand of pure water. The modeling is composed of governing equations based on the law of conservation of mass and law of conservation of energy. The solar irradiance at Lyari River is taken from MERRA–2. The result depicted that the hourly production of distill water is 1 kg/m3 and 8 kg/m3 with and without the FRL lens. The cost of distill water produced from the solar stills having FRL lens is 33% less as compared with solar stills without FRL lens.