Design, Mathematical Modeling and Thermal Performance Evaluation of Water Solar Collector for the Desalination Process

Abstract

This chapter presents the modeling and the experimental study of a water solar collector coupled to an optimized solar still developed in order to boost freshwater production in a solar distillation system. The desalination process is currently operated under the climatological conditions of Sfax, Tunisia. To numerically simulate the water solar collector, we developed a dynamic model based on heat and mass transfer of the water solar collector. The obtained set of ordinary differential equations was converted to a set of an algebraic system of equations by the functional approximation method of orthogonal collocation. The aim of this study is to present the mathematical model and experimental study of this water solar collector.