A way to co-generate electricity and fresh water

In this era, one of the major problems facing many countries is water scarcity. Although global water availability is about 1.4 billion cubic kilometers and despite ongoing efforts to solve the problem, less than 3 percent of global water resources are drinkable. Moreover, freshwater availability is decreasing due to climate change causing droughts and continued population growth: it is estimated that global fresh water needs will increase by 20-30% within 2050. In this thesis, a system based on the direct coupling between a photovoltaic panel and a single-stage Direct-Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD) system is proposed, which is suitable for mitigating the aforementioned issues, and thus able to produce electricity in a sustainable way and fresh water. The active distillation device is powered by low-temperature heat, where the required heat is recovered from the back side of the photovoltaic device. The goal is to demonstrate the feasibility of generating photovoltaic electricity from the sun and, at the same time, fresh water from waste heat. The solution was studied by means of numerical simulations using Simulink software. To analyze process performance during the transient and stationary operations, a dynamic mathematical model based on the 2D diffusion-advection equation is proposed for the DCMD module implemented through the finite difference method. The developed model allows the estimation of the energy and productivity of fresh water under different operating conditions. All the constituent elements of the active system are described in detail, including the physics of the process. Furthermore, different coupling configurations are investigated. Subsequently, the modeling results are illustrated, compared and commented on. The best conditions for using the system are identified through a sensitivity analysis. The system, in addition to a higher productivity of fresh water, allows an increase in the relative photovoltaic efficiency, as the temperature of the PV module is reduced when combined with desalination technology. Finally, the experimental setup useful for testing the prototype is described. This thesis work is therefore intended to assist the design process of the envisioned prototype, which will be thoroughly tested in future work.