Air-Heating Solar Collectors for Humidification-Dehumidification Desalination Systems
Author(s)
Summers, Edward K.; Zubair, Syed M.; Lienhard, John H
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Relative to solar water heaters, solar air heaters have received relatively little investigation and have resulted in few commercial products. However, in the context of a humidification-dehumidification (HDH) desalination cycle, air heating accounts for advantages in cycle performance. Solar collectors can be over 40% of an air-heated HDH system’s cost; thus, design optimization is crucial. Best design practices and sensitivity to material properties for solar air heaters are investigated, and absorber solar absorptivity and glazing transmissivity are found to have the strongest effect on performance. Wind speed is also found to have an impact on performance. Additionally a well designed, and likely low cost, collector includes a double glazing and roughened absorber plates for superior heat transfer to the airstream. A collector in this configuration performs better than current collectors with an efficiency of 58% at a normalized gain of 0.06 Km[superscript 2]/W.
Date issued
2011-02Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Abdul Latif Jameel World Water & Food Security Lab; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical EngineeringJournal
Journal of Solar Energy Engineering
Publisher
ASME International
Citation
Summers, Edward K., John H. Lienhard, and Syed M. Zubair. “Air-Heating Solar Collectors for Humidification-Dehumidification Desalination Systems.” J. Sol. Energy Eng. 133, no. 1 (2011): 011016. © 2011 ASME
Version: Final published version
ISSN
01996231