Numerical study and experimental validation of a solar powered humidification-dehumidification desalination system with integrated air and water collectors in the humidifier

This paper presents a numerical study and experimental validation of humidification-dehumidification solar desalination unit. This unit consists of a solar evaporator and a tubular condenser. The design particularity of the evaporator is the integration of the humidifier in the solar air and water collectors. A mathematical model based on the heat and mass balances has been developed in the desalination unit. The finite difference method is adopted for discretization of the equations and the resolution is done by MATLAB software. Numerical results are compared with literature and experimental results. An acceptable agreement is observed. A parametric study was conducted to test the influence of the different operating parameters on the unit production and the Gained output ratio GOR. The production of the desalination system increases with air and water temperatures of the water in the evaporator and the inlet humid air temperature at the dehumidifier. It should be noted that the production reaches its maximum value for a feed water mass flow rate in the humidifier of 5.5 kg/h and a cooling water mass flow rate in the dehumidifier of 0.2 kg/s.

Automated summary

This paper presents a numerical study and experimental validation of a humidification-dehumidification solar desalination unit, which consists of a solar evaporator and a tubular condenser. The design particularity of the evaporator is the integration of the humidifier in the solar air and water collectors. A mathematical model based on heat and mass balances was developed and solved using the finite difference method and MATLAB software. The numerical results showed good agreement with literature and experimental results. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the influence of different operating parameters on the unit production and the Gained output ratio (GOR). The desalination system's production increased with higher air and water temperatures in the evaporator and higher inlet humid air temperature at the dehumidifier. The maximum production was achieved at a feed water mass flow rate of 5.5 kg/h in the humidifier and a cooling water mass flow rate of 0.2 kg/s in the dehumidifier.