Photovoltaic and disinfection performance study of a hybrid photovoltaic-solar water disinfection system

It is the first time that flat PV (photovoltaic) cells were integrated with SODIS (solar water disinfection) to be an access to the clean drinkable water and the renewable electricity. The disinfection and photovoltaic performance of the system was evaluated by the disinfection of Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Salmonella. In order to enhance the SODIS process, a V-trough concentrator and low concentration H2O2 were adopted. The treatment time required for 8 L water that reached completely disinfection was 1.25 h and 2.5 h for the inactivation of E. coli and Salmonella respectively, when using the V-trough concentrator and 5 mg L−1 H2O2 simultaneously. Therefore, E. coli seems not to be a suitable bacteria indicator for SODIS. The temperature of the PV module decreases significantly because of the additional water layer, so that the power generation efficiency is improved. Although the water layer on the PV module can both reflect and absorb light, the output power of the PV module with a V-trough concentrator is about 43 W (the reference is 26.1 W), which is much higher than the whole system power consumption. Therefore, the excess power can be used for other applications.