Seminar in SMMEE

Title: DesaLink: Solar powered desalination of brackish groundwater giving high output and high recovery
Speaker: Dr. Philip A. Davies
Location: L3
Date: 01-Apr-2013 (Mon)
Time: 2pm

Abstract:

Desalination of groundwater is essential in many arid areas that are far fromboth seawater and freshwater resources. The ideal groundwater desalination system shouldoperate using a sustainable energy source and provide high water output per land area andcost. To avoid discharging voluminous brine it should also provide high recovery. To achievethese aims, we have designed DesaLink, a novel approach to linking the solar Rankinecycle to reverse osmosis (RO). To achieve high recovery without the need for multiple ROstages, DesaLink adopts a batch mode of operation. It is suited to use with a variety of solarthermal collectors including Linear Fresnel Reflectors (LFR). For example, using a LFRoccupying 1000 m2 of land and providing steam at 200oC and 15.5 bar, DesaLink is predictedto provide 350 m3 of freshwater per day at a recovery ratio of 0.7, when fed with brackishgroundwater containing 5000 ppm of sodium chloride. Here we report preliminary resultswith a laboratory prototype in which compressed air is used to simulate the action of steam.We compare these results to model predictions obtained earlier and explain how the conceptwill be developed further.