JASC: JOURNAL OF APPLIED SCIENCE AND COMPUTATIONS ISSN NO: 0076-5131

Solar Desalination Using Phase Change Materials and Vacuum

Pump
Kiran C H1, Chetanakumara Veerabhadrappa U2, Chethan H N3,
Madhu M S4, Maruthi H T5.
12345Department
Alva’sOf
1,2,3,4,5. Mechanical
Institute Engineering,
Of Engineering And Alva’s Institute
Technology. Of Engineering
Department And Technology.
Of Mechanical Engineering,Mangalore
Mangalore
1ckmkiran@aiet.org.in, 2chethuvu@gmail.com, 3chethanhnking@gmail.com

4madhums41175@gmail.com, 5maruthiht40@gmail.com

Abstract—estimating the growth of population and industrial development leads to demand of water resources. Water
resources covered the one third of the earth, in these less than 1% is suitable for industrial and domestic uses. With rapid
growth of population, industrial development leading to deforestation and declination of water. This leads to scarcity of
drinking water for growth of population. To overcome the crisis an alternate solution is rain harvesting and desalination.
Because of the climate change due to pollution rainfalls is decline year by year.so desalination is better solution for this crisis.
It is estimates that 22million m3 of freshwater being produced per day by desalination process in worldwide, but only 1% is
due to solar energy. Direct and indirect methods are used for desalinate the sea water to the freshwater. Most of the methods
like desalination, Multi stage flash distillation and reverse osmosis, are energy depended and consume electric power and
fossil fuels. Demands water is more so supply should be less expensive, so solar desalination is better compared to
conventional methods. The main objective of the proposed project is that by using free energy converting the saline water
to the necessity water by using principle of the thermal and low pressure vessels leads to change in latent heat and sensible
heat. Possible outcome is to provide suitable combination to get better yield of drinking water from saline water. The
efficiency of solar still varied for the beam radiation of 312.5 W/m2 to 925 W/m2. A maximum distilled yield is 1.5 to 2.2
ltr/day is obtained with 0.54 m2 area.

Keywords: Saline water, low pressure vessel, solar energy, Desalination, direct method, Heat energy
storage, Phase change material.

I. INTRODUCTION
A. General
Water is the major fundamental for the life to sustain Earth’s composition consists of 97.5% of water is regarded as the
sea water (brackish water) and the 1-2% is available for domestic’s usage. According to the world health organization (WHO),
it is necessary for person to have a minimum water consumption of 15-20 L for the basic needs.

Water is a basic necessity of man along with food and air. Fresh water resources usually available are rivers, lakes and
underground water reservoirs. About 71% of the planet is covered in water, yet of all of that 96.5% of the planet’s water is
found in oceans, 1.7% in groundwater, 1.7% in glaciers and the ice caps and 0.001% in the air as vapour and clouds, only
2.5% of the Earth’s water is freshwater and 98.8% of that water is in ice and groundwater. Less than 1% of all freshwater is
in rivers, lakes and the atmosphere.

Human beings need 1 or 2 liters of water a day. The minimum requirement for normal life in developing countries
(which includes cooking, cleaning and washing cloths) is 20 liters per day. Drinking water with acceptable quality has been
unevenly distributed worldwide.

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The major scarcity of water occurs in under developed areas, or villages. The major problems faced by society is due to
drinking water, so to overcome this, many techniques have been introduced, few of them are thermal process, Multi stage
flash (MSF), Membrane process, Nano filtration, Hybrid process that involves both phase change and membrane distillation,
hence this water requires an innovative technique which can be both sustainable and cost effective to produce portable
water. Solar desalination is a technique used to remove the salt content in brackish water using solar energy. There are two
desalination techniques, they are, Direct and Indirect.

B. About solar energy:

Solar energy is a very large energy, inexhaustible source of energy. The power from the sun intercepted by the earth is
approximately 1.8×1011 MW, which is many thousands times larger than present all commercial energy consumption rate
on the earth. Thus in principle, solar energy could supply all the present and future energy needs of the world on a continuous
basis. This makes it one of the most promising of all the unconventional energy sources.

The sun radiates the energy uniformly in all direction in the form of electromagnetic waves. When absorbed by body, it
increases its temperature. It is a clean, inexhaustible, abundantly and universally available renewable energy, solar energy has
the greatest potential of all the sources of renewable energy and if only a small amount of this form of energy could be used,
it will be one of the most important supplies of energy, especially when other sources in the country have depleted.

This solution is solar water distillation. It is not a new process, but it has not received the attention that it deserves.
Perhaps this is because it is such a low-tech and flexible solution to water problems. Nearly anyone is capable of building a
still and providing themselves with completely pure water from very questionable sources. 3.8x1024 joules of solar radiation
is absorbed by earth and atmosphere per year. Solar power where sun hits atmosphere is 1017 watts and the total demand is
1013 watts. Therefore, the sun gives us 1000 times more power than we need. If we can use 5% of this energy, it will be 50
times what the world will require.

C. About Phase change material:

A phase change material absorbs and releases thermal energy in order to maintain a regulated temperature. When a PCM
is in its' solid phase it will absorb heat as the external temperature rises. The temperature of the PCM rise until the PCM's
melt point is reached after the external temperature the decreases then PCM start to release the energy which is absorbed
from it. During the phase change process PCM will absorb large amount of heat with no change in temperature.

The melting point of the PCM will different for each type of PCM. Generally, PCM used as a heat storage unit in day
time and use the stored energy in night time to increases the efficiency of the system. Phase change materials have two
favorable properties. They have a very high heat storage density and they store and release a considerable amount of heat at
a constant temperature. This makes PCMs in many applications an interesting alternative to other heat storage mediums.
Phase materials are classified as,

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D. Concept of solar desalination:

Distillation is one of many processes available for water purification, and sunlight is one of several forms of heat energy
that can be used to power that process. To dispel a common belief, it is not necessary to boil water to distil it. Simply
elevating its temperature, short of boiling, will adequately increases the evaporation rate. In fact, although vigorous boiling
hastens the desalination process it also can force unwanted residue into the distillate, defeating purification.

Solar desalination is a technique to desalinate water using solar energy. There are two basic methods of achieving
desalination using this technique; Direct and Indirect. In the direct method, a solar collector is coupled with a distilling
mechanism and the process is carried out in one simple cycle. Indirect solar desalination employs two separate system; a
solar collection array, consisting of photovoltaic and or fluid base thermal collectors, and separate conventional desalination
plant.

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) of Saudi Arabia is currently operating small scale single purpose
thermal desalination plants with water production capacities ranging from 250 to 9000 m3/day. The heat required for the
evaporation of the water droplets can be supplied/ recovered from the following sources: sun, light, double walled insulated
glassing effect, black colour effect, heat generated by the vacuum pump, heat collected from the PV panels and latent heat
recovered from the generated vapour.

II. METHODOLOGY
The main objective of this method is to get portable water from the brackish water with the help of solar energy. This
can be made in a two different ways; they are direct and indirect method. Here we are using direct method to convert
brackish water into portable water. We have done desalination without PCM, with PCM, without vacuum and with vacuum
to compare the productivity of each system.

Initially the brackish water is passed to the closed system with constant flow rate. By reducing the pressure inside the system
through vacuum pump, the pressure inside the system reduces then boiling point of the water also reduces. So by using
direct solar energy we can boil the brackish water at temperature range of 45-60 degree.

Fig 1: Experimental Setup:

We are using phase change material which is placed beneath. The PCM get heated and melts when its temperature
reaches it melting point, and when the melting process is complete its temperature continues to rise based on the intensity
of solar radiation and length of the day. In this process the energy is stored in the PCM which is released back after decline
of atmospheric temp. The maximum energy released from it observed by brackish water and some energy will be lost based
on the insulation in system. Due to this, the water evaporates and is adhered to glass slab, then the condensed vapour flow
down gradually. As the brine concentration in the system increases, it has to be discharge out of the system. The cycle repeats
from morning to evening. The vapour from the glass slab is collected in the collector through pipes and are portable. The
portable water is passed through the bio grades to form a drinking water.

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III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Fig 2: 2-Dimensional view of the setup

Above picture shows the experimental setup which we have used and it consists of following parts:
A Wood: It is used as insulator which does not allow the heat to pass out. Plywood of 12mm thick is used for this setup.

Fig A: Plywood used in the experiment

B Phase Change Material: It has the ability to absorb the heat in the day time and liberate that heat during night time. The
main purpose of using PCM is to increase the yield of freshwater. Fully refined paraffin wax in the form of slab is used for
our work.
Specifications:
 Melting point- 55℃ to 58℃.
 Colour - white.
 Density- 900 kg/m3.
 Flash point- 235℃.

Fig B: Paraffin wax

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C Aluminium sheet: It is placed above the PCM and water is fed on top of this sheet. Aluminium sheet absorbs more amount
of heat and transfers it to both water and PCM. Sheet of 2mm thick is used for our system.
Specifications:
 Density- 2.7 gm/cm3.
 Latent heat of fusion-400 j/g
 Thermal conductivity-237 w/m K.

Fig C: Aluminium sheet

D Glass: The main purpose of using glass is that it condenses the water vapour. This glass is tilted to an angle so that maximum
solar radiation can pass through it.
Specifications:
 Thickness - 4mm.
 Transmitivity-89%.
 Density-2500 kg/m3.

Fig D: Clear glass of 4 mm thick

E Vacuum pump: - It is used to remove the air present inside the chamber and reduce the pressure to required level.
Specifications:
 Power- 0.25HP, 240V.
 Capacity- 50lpm.
 Speed- 2880RPM.

Fig E: Vacuum pump of 0.25 HP

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F Vacuum gauge: - Gauge is used to measure the amount of air that is taken out or pressure inside the chamber.

Fig F: vacuum gauge

IV. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF SOLAR STILL

A For glass sheet:
When the solar radiation incident on the glass, the glass which will transfer the radiation through it to heat the water
and absorbs some amount of heat. Due to temperature variation between the glass sheet and atmosphere some amount of
heat will liberated to atmosphere and rest of the energy is utilized for heating the water.

Energy balance equation for glass sheet

= + , + ,
Where QI = Energy of the solar radiation on the glass cover.
Qcond = Energy transfer through glass.
( − )
=
Where K = Thermal conductivity of glass.
A = surface area of glass sheet.
L = Thickness of glass sheet.
TH and TC = Higher temperature and lower temperature.
Qconv, atm = Energy exchange between outer layer of glass and atmosphere.
= ( − )
where h = convection heat transfers co-efficient.
A= surface area of glass sheet.
Qconv, ch = Energy exchange between inner layer of glass and the chamber.

B For brackish water:

The solar radiation after transfer through glass sheet it incident directly on the water surface. Due to high intensity,
temperature of water increases and some amount of heat will transfer to aluminium sheet and chamber because of
temperature difference between them.

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Energy balance of the brackish water

= +
Where QI = heat energy incident on the water surface.
Q1 = Energy exchange between water surface and chamber (Convection).
=ℎ ( − )
Where h = convection heat transfers co-efficient.
A= surface area of glass sheet.
TW and TC = Temperature of Water and Temperature of chamber respectively
Q2 = energy exchange between water and aluminium sheet (Convection).
=ℎ ( − )
Where TW and Tal are the temperature of water and aluminium sheet respectively.

C For basin liner (aluminium sheet):

When the water gets heated convection takes place between the water and aluminium sheet due to temperature
variation. The heat is transfer from higher energy to lower energy so during day time the water gets heated and some amount
of heat energy transfer to aluminium sheet and it transfer to PCM. During the night time the heat transfer will takes places
in reverse process from PCM to water through aluminium sheet.

Energy balance for basin liner

. = , + ,
Where Qconv = Heat transfer from water to aluminium sheet.
QCond,Al = Heat transfer through aluminium sheet.
Qcond, PCM =Heat transfer from aluminium sheet to PCM.

D For phase change material:

When the heat transfers from aluminium sheet to PCM, it starts to absorb the heat till it completely melts and it transfer
its phase from solid to liquid, during melting of PCM takes place PCM will absorbs more heat and it stores the heat. After
the sunset the temperature in the system will reduces, so that temperature difference between the PCM and water the heat
will transfer from PCM to water through aluminium sheet till the water temperature equal to PCM temperature.

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Energy balance equation

= +
Where QStored = Heat stored in the phase change material.
QConv = Heat transfer through convection process.

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A Desalination without PCM:
Experimental analysis has made to study the effect solar radiation, vacuum pressure and phase change material on the
system performance.
The variation of water temperature in the system for different interval of time as shown in the figure 3. The temperature of
water in the system is high at noon where higher solar radiations is obtained.

Fig 3: variation in glass temperature in hourly basis for different time intervals.

Fig.4: Variation in distillate yield for different interval of time

As the intensity of solar radiation increases, yield also increases. From the figure 4, we can clearly see that from noon 12
to 2pm there is more yield because the intensity of solar radiation is more at that time. Radiation in evening is less compared
to noon and hence the yield will be less.

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Fig. 5: variation in glass temperature for different days of experiment

Solar radiations fall on water by passing through the glass. The glass transmits the radiation and by doing that it absorbs
some heat and temperature of glass increases. From figure 5 we can observe the temperature of the glass for different interval
of time. The temperature of the glass is similar to that of water temperature.

B Desalination with PCM and without vacuum.

Fig.6: distillated water yield with respect to time.

Desalination with phase change material increases the yield. As we can see from graph 6, at the night we can get
some yield. Implementing PCM reduces the water temperature compared to desalination without PCM. The overall output
will be more compared to desalination without PCM.

Fig.7: variation in water temperature

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Water temperature during day time is less in this system compared to desalination without PCM. Figure 7 shows
the variation of water temperature with time. As we can see from the graph, the temperature of water during night time is
more compared to other system because of PCM.

Fig 8: variation of glass temperature with time

The figure 8 shows the variation in PCM temperature with respect to time. The PCM temperature will be similar to
that of room temperature initially and gradually temperature of PCM increases by absorbing the heat. Due to latent heat, the
phase change takes place from solid to liquid and vice-versa. From the graph we can clearly see that the temperature of PCM
decreases after 5pm, because it liberates the heat absorbed to the water.

C Desalination with PCM and with vacuum

Fig 9: variation in PCM temperature for different pressure and time

PCM temperature in desalination with vacuum remains almost same as that of without vacuum. There will be slight
variation in temperature with respect to pressure which is as shown in above figure 9. The latent heat transfer remains the
same for any pressure.

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Fig 10: yield obtained for different time intervals and pressure
The figure 10 shows the fresh water production for different pressure throughout the day. As we can see that the
yield increases gradually by decreasing the pressure. For pressure 0.99, 0.98, 0.97 bar the yield obtained is 1.535, 1.605, 1.715
lt/day. And yield per day based on the intensity of solar radiation also.

Fig 11: water temperature in the system with respect to time

As the pressure decreases, boiling point of the water also decreases. The temperature of water depends on solar
intensity, and by decreasing the pressure we cannot increase the temperature of water. From the figure 11, we can see the
variation in temperature of water with time and it is clearly observed that temperature remains almost same for every
pressure.

VI. CONCLUSION
 The water extracted from the saline water is distillated and are not portable water. So to get portable water, we have to add
some minerals.
 As the pressure inside the chamber decreases, the yield per day also increases.
 Water level inside the chamber also effects the fresh water production. As the water level decreases, yield increases.
 If the mass of PCM increases, then the absorption of heat by PCM will be more which reduces the yield.
 Glass thickness also effects the fresh water production. If the glass used is of less thickness, then output will be more.
 To withstand the vacuum pressure, the glass thickness should be more and insulator used must have more strength.

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FUTURE SCOPE

 The experiment was conducted up to 0.97 Bar vacuum pressure because wood can’t withstand the high vacuum, by using
the high strength material with very less thermal conductivity in the construction of the experiment to create vacuum up to
0.6 Bar will give the more yield per day.
 While selecting the glass, glass having high thermal conductivity, high transmitivity with more thickness to allows the
radiation through it and resists the vacuum pressure.

FUNDING
This work is funded by Karnataka state council of science and technology, 41st series student project programme (SSP)
Grant (Ref.no: 41S_BE_0950).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We gratefully acknowledge the Karnataka state council and science and technology for their financial support.

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