Affiliation:
1. School of Energy Science and Engineering University of Science and Technology of China Guangzhou 510640 China
2. Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou 510640 China
3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049 China
Abstract
AbstractThe solar thermal localization (STL) technology is promising and cost‐effective for desalination or wastewater treatments, but currently in an insufficient status on its structure optimization. This study emphasized the water‐cooled STL (WSTL) system and its step‐forward modifications, involving the air‐insulated WSTL (AWSTL) system and the vacuum WSTL (VWSTL) system, together with their thermodynamic modeling analysis on energy‐water conversions, heat‐mass transfers, and energy losses. Results indicated the best‐performing VWSTL mode can achieve a freshwater yield as high as 1.503 kg·m−2·h−1 at energy efficiency of 68.0% (the light intensity at 1500 W·m−2 indoor), and that of 4.31 kg·m−2·day−1 at energy efficiency of 47.5% (the 8‐h averaged solar light intensity at 769.7 W·m−2 outdoor per‐day) whose energy efficiency is exceeded all competitors in open literature. There likely is an improvement space in applying better evaporation materials.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Chinese Academy of Sciences