Investigations on Solar Desalination Based on Vacuum Evaporation for Small Scale Applications

The growing population and the uneven rainfall patterns have led to the acute shortage of the fresh water availability globally, driving researchers and industrialists towards fresh water production from the available saline water to balance the need. However, desalination being an energy incentive process, utilizing the available renewable energy sources for the thermal energy requirement has become the need of the hour to make desalination a reliable source of fresh water. Though the use of renewable energy in a few desalination technologies has commercially been successful, there is a large scope for the application of these technologies in the small-scale sector. This paper deals with the designing and analysis of a desalination system based on low-temperature flash evaporation utilizing the solar energy collected by flat plate collectors. This system is designed such that it will facilitate the fresh water requirements of the coastal and island areas considering the available solar energy in these places. Moreover these systems can be operated in batches and can provide the fresh water requirements of a small family on a daily basis where no electricity is available as such. The experimental results obtained are promising, making this system an efficient and cost-effective means of water purification.