An experimental work on the performance of solar still incorporating with wind turbine and thermal energy storage unit

• Published in: Desalination and water treatment Vol. 165; pp. 24 - 34
• Main Authors: Elbar, Ayman Refat Abd, Hassan, Hamdy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01-10-2019
• Subjects: Black Steel wool fibers; Phase change material; Solar still; Wind turbine; Yield; Solar still; Yield; Phase change material; Black Steel wool fibers; Performance; Wind turbine
• ISSN: 1944-3986
• DOI: 10.5004/dwt.2019.24492

The performance of single slope solar still incorporating with a wind turbine by a new coupling technique is investigated experimentally. The coupling technique is based on transferring the output power from the turbine directly to the brackish water in the still basin by utilizing an electrical heater embedded in the still basin. The advantage of this technique is that the turbine power is transmitted directly to the salty water in the basin without any intermediate which affects negatively on the transmitting performance. Moreover, the wind turbine doesn’t require extra land than the land occupied by the still where it can be built on the same area of the stills. The system performance (solar still plus turbine) is also studied in case of utilizing thermal energy storage unit of phase change material (PCM) coupled with the still’s basin base. Moreover, it is studied in case of using black steel wool fibers (BSWF) in the basin. Four cases are studied to determine the influence of wind power on the performance of the solar still; (i) conventional solar still (CSS) (ii) CSS with wind turbine only, (iii) CSS with wind turbine and BSWF saturated with salty water in the basin, and (iv) CSS with a wind turbine and PCM. The performance of the different cases is experimentally evaluated and compared to each other at the same climate conditions of Borg El-Arab City, Alexandria, Egypt (Longitude/Latitude: E 029°42’/N 30°55’). The findings illustrate that using the turbine increases the still temperatures and yield. BSWF are more effective than PCM in case of CSS but in case of using wind turbine with CSS, PCM is more effective than BSWF. Coupling the wind turbine with CSS rises its yield by around 19.8%, 30.9%, and 20.1% in case of CSS, still with BSWF, and still with PCM, respectively.