Potential of a dual purpose solar collector on humidification dehumidification desalination system

An experimental investigation on a humidification dehumidification (HDH) desalination system integrated with a dual purpose solar collector (DPSC) is reported in this work. The DPSC is used to simultaneously heat the water and air needed for the distillation process. Air flows over the top surface of the absorber plate and the water flows through the riser tubes, attached in the bottom side of absorber plate. The heated air and water from the collector is supplied to the humidifier, where the air gets humidified and moves towards dehumidifier for condensation. The performance of the system is analyzed by providing semi circular turbulators (convex and concave) in the air flow field. The system ability is investigated by varying the flow rate of air, hot water in humidifier and cooling water in dehumidifier. The system distillation capacity enhances with the air and water temperature and flow rate of air, hot water and cold water. The highest productivity of 12.36, 14.14 and 15.23 kg/m2.day is collected for the without turbulators, convex and concave turbulators in absorber plate respectively. The overall efficiency of the system reaches the value of 67.6% with the concave turbulators in the DPSC.