posted on 2012-10-16, 12:58authored byMurray Thomson
The design, construction and testing of a photovoltaic-powered reverse-osmosis (PV -RO)
desalination system is presented The system operates from seawater and requires no
batteries, since the rate of production of freshwater varies throughout the day according
to the available solar power. Initial testing of the system, with the modest solar resource
available in the UK, provided freshwater at approximately 1 5 m3/day. Nearer to the
equator and with a PV array of only 2.4 kWp, a software model of the system predicts
production of over 3 m3/day throughout the year. The system employs a Clark pump
brine-stream energy recovery mechanism and this, coupled with variable water recovery
ratio, achieves a specific energy consumption of less than 4 kWh/m3 over a broad range
of operation. Standard industrial inverters, motors and pumps are employed and provide
good energy and cost efficiency. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for the
photovoltaic array IS provided by a novel control algorithm, developed by the author.
Instrumentation and data acquisition of the hardware test rig using LabVIEW is
described. Testing and modelling of the system components in MATLAB-Simulink is
presented, together with a discussion of the full system modelling and design procedure,
in which the aim was to minimise the cost of water. This led to a capital cost estimate of
£23,055 includmg the PV array, and an overall cost of water, including full maintenance,
of £200 per m3
History
School
Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/
Publication date
2003
Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.