Analysis of a solar energy assisted desalination system with ground source heat exchanger

In this thesis, a solar energy assisted novel desalination system, which is based on the principle of humidification and dehumidification (HDH), was designed, modeled and its performance was investigated. The designed system differs from other HDH desalination systems avaliable in the literature in terms of that both sea water and the water cooled by soil can be used to obtain clean (distilled) water in dehumidifier. In the system, sea water is firstly heated by solar collectors and then it is used in humidifier to humidify the air taken from the outdoor environment. The air, whose humidity and temperature is increased, is sent to the dehumidifier and distilled water is obtained by condensing with sea water or water cooled with ground source heat exchanger. In the study, first of all, whether the air and sea water used in the system is re-used in the system at the end of the process was examined with different configurations formed on the model. Then, the effects of different parameters such as outdoor conditions, sea water and soil temperature, solar radiation, collector area on system performance were investigated. In the study, the performance of the system was also evaluated for the climatic conditions of Turkey's some provinces. Analyses were made seperately for the case where the water used in the humidifier is sea water or water cooled with ground source heat exchanger or both together. It was seen with this study that the use of ground source heat exchanger increases the system performance and the best system configuration in terms of performance is that the sea water is reused in the system at the end of the process. It was also determined that it is appropriate to use this system for different regions of Turkey, especially in the summer season.