Thermoenviroeconomic performance augmentation of solar desalination unit integrated with wick, nanofluid, and different nano-based energy storage materials

Abstract

The current paper introduces conducted efforts to augment the thermo-enviroeconomic characteristics of a hemispherical solar still (HSS) incorporating various improvements. These proposed modifications were applied to the HSS in sequence and each case was tested and compared to another ordinary HSS. In the first stage, corrugated copper covered with black cotton fabric was used as absorber and paraffin wax, used as phase change material (PCM), was filled under the absorber. Then, the second stage was tested using the same design but with sheep fat instead of the paraffin wax. In the third stage, graphite nanofluid was used in the basin of the previous design. Finally, the pure sheep fat was replaced with nano-based one by dispersing graphite nanoparticles in the sheep fat. Taking the experimental data as independent parameters, the thermo-enviroecomonic indicators were calculated. The daily yield augmentation ratios were 43 %, 59.77 %, 78.77 %, and 95.2 %, for the four cases, respectively. The best thermos-economic performance was reached using the final case as it had thermal and exergy efficiencies of 61.7 % and 5.8 %, likewise, equivalent improvements by 94.76 %, and 110.1 %. Furthermore, the freshwater price was decreased to 0.0106 $/L referring to a cost reduction of 33.90 %. Moreover, the environmental analysis resulted a 6.27-ton CO₂/year reduction in CO₂ emission, which refers to a cost of 90.89 $/year.