Atst 50201035

Asian Transactions on Science & Technology (ATST ISSN: 2221-4283) Volume 02 Issue 03
July 2012 ATST-50201035Asian-Transactions 1

Solar pond and its application to desalination
A.Z.A. Saifullah
a*
, A.M. Shahed Iqubal
a
and Anirban Saha
b

a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, IUBAT International University of Business Agriculture and Technology, Dhaka 1230, Bangladesh
b
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Tx 78249, USA

Abstract
This paper discusses the solar pond technology and how it is applied to desalination. A solar pond is a shallow
body of water which acts as a solar collector with integral heat storage for supplying thermal energy. Solar ponds
are mainly two types: convective solar ponds and non-convective solar ponds. The shallow solar pond and the deep
saltless pond are the examples of convective type. There are three types of non-convective solar ponds: salinity
gradient solar pond (SGSP), membrane solar pond and polymer gel layers solar pond. A SGSP is a pool of water
about 1-5 m deep, which contains dissolved salts to establish a stable density gradient. There are three layers in a
SGSP: upper convective zone (UCZ), lower convective zone (LCZ) and salinity gradient non-convective zone
(NCZ) in the middle. Incident solar energy is collected and stored which may be delivered at temperature near
100C. The SGSP is the most eco-friendly and environment-friendly among all the solar energy systems for
electricity generation, desalination, hot water applications in agriculture, green house heating, domestic hot water
production and space heating and cooling of buildings. Nevertheless, a SGSP is more cost-effective since its
collection cost per square meter is only one-fifth of that of a liquid flat plate collector, and cost of 1KWh of
electricity production by a SGSP is only one-fifth of that produced by photovoltaic cells. A solar pond multi-stage
flash distillation system (SPMSF) is very promising for Bangladesh. MSF plants can produce 6-60 L/m
2
/day,
whereas for typical solar stills it is 3-4 L/m
2
/day.
Keywords: solar pond, salinity gradient, sodium chloride, desalination, SPMSF
Introduction
Study and research have been made for a low cost
collection and storage system of solar energy in
various countries [1]-[3]. Simultaneous collection
and storage of solar energy is feasible in a purposely
built open water reservoir commonly called as solar
pond [4]. Solar pond is a convenient and effective
means which collects solar radiation and stores its
thermal energy for a relatively longer period of time.
Remarkable research effort and publications started

in 1960s, mostly in Israel. Then going slowly effort
on research speeded throughout the world after the
energy crisis in 1970s [5]. Research has been done
on solar pond for about 50 years. It is now used in
Israel, USA, India and Australia [6] [10]. China
has done remarkable progress in study and
application of solar pond technology to various
applications [11], [12]. Some other countries like
Iran, Turkey and Libya are also actively engaged in
research on solar ponds [18], [26], [32]. Simulation
has been performed for heat and mass transfer in a
SGSP by several researchers [26], [60]-[63].
Besides, experimental research in SGSP is also there
[26], [64].
The thermo-nuclear reaction in the sun originates
solar energy. Solar energy covers the entire
electromagnetic wave spectrum. The surface
receives about 47% of the total energy reaching the
earth. This amount only is the usable energy [13].
Solar energy can be utilized directly by two
technologies solar thermal and solar photovoltaic.
Solar thermal technology results in solar collectors,
solar water heater, solar passive space heating and
cooling system, solar refrigeration and air-
conditioning system, solar cooker, solar furnace,
solar greenhouse, solar dryer, solar distillation, and
solar thermo-mechanical systems. Solar thermo-
mechanical system includes solar thermal water
pump, solar vapour compression refrigeration and
solar pond [14]. Solar pond is a simple and low cost
solar energy system. Solar pond is now an attractive
means which can be used for electric power
generation, desalination, salt production, grain
drying, fruit and vegetable drying, fruit and
vegetable canning industry, aquaculture, dairy
industry, green house heating, domestic hot water
production and space heating and cooling of
buildings.
The objective of this paper is to describe the
technology of solar pond and its application to
desalination.
Scope and Limitations
This paper gives a detailed concept on SGSP with its
working principle, thermal behavior, and stability
criterion. Besides, management of a SGSP has been
described with its construction, salt used, site
selection, soil character, salinity gradient formation,
obstruction and remedies and heat extraction. Solar
desalination has been discussed with special
emphasis on SPMSF.
There is no data and recommendations on site
selection, linear selection, salt gradient
establishment, heat extraction, environmental

protection and cost analysis of a SGSP, because no
research project on experimental
solar pond has been operated in Bangladesh until
today.
Solar Ponds
A solar pond is a shallow body of water which acts
as a solar collector with integral heat storage for
supplying thermal energy. There are two types of
solar ponds convective solar pond and non-
convective solar pond. The shallow solar pond is a
convective solar pond. It consists of a large bag that
prevents evaporation but permits convection. The
bag has blackened bottom with foam insulation
below, and two types of glazing (sheets of plastic or
glass) on top. Solar energy heats the water in the bag
during the day and at night the hot water is pumped
into a large heat storage tank to minimize heat loss.
Another type is the deep, saltless pond. Double
glazing covers deep saltless pond. When solar
energy is not available or at night placing insulation
on the top of the glazing reduces heat loss [15].
A non-convective solar pond is a large shallow body
of water 1 to 5 m deep, but 3-4 m on the average,
which is arranged in a way so that the temperature
gradient is reversed from the normal. This allows
collection of radiant energy into heat (up to 95 C),
storage of heat and transport of thermal energy, at
temperature 40-50 C above normal, out of the system
[15]-[17].
There are three types of non-convective solar ponds
in terms of the methods of maintaining layered
structure. One is SGSP where density gradient is
maintained by salt water. The other is membrane
solar pond which uses horizontal and vertical
membranes. The third one is polymer gel layers solar
pond [16].
A SGSP is a system for solar energy collection and
storage. It uses solar radiation to heat water; stores
sensible heat in dense saline water; establishes
density gradient to prevent convective heat flow and
thus stores thermal energy. Fig. 1 shows the
schematic view of a SGSP [17], [18].
A SGSP has 3 main layers. These are UCZ (Upper
Convective Zone): top layer; NCZ (Non-convective
Zone): middle layer and LCZ (Lower Convective
Zone): bottom layer.
UCZ is of almost low salinity and at close to ambient
temperature. This zone is the result of evaporation,
wind mixing, surface flushing and nocturnal cooling.
Generally this layer is maintained as thin (0.3 0.5
m) as possible by the use of wave-suppressing
meshes or by placing wind-breaks near the ponds.

NCZ is a gradient which is much thicker and
occupies 1.5 m or more than half of the depth of the
pond. In NCZ, both salt concentration and
temperature increases with depth. The vertical
salinity gradient in NCZ holds back convection and
thus offers the thermal insulation effect. Temperature
gradient is formed due to absorption of solar
radiation at the pond base. LCZ is a zone of almost
constant relatively high salinity (20-30% by weight)
at nearly constant high temperature. Heat is stored in
LCZ, which should be sized to supply energy
throughout the year. It is almost as thick (usually 1
m) as the NCZ [15], [19]-[21]. This is the heat
collector, heat storage and heat removal medium.
The bottom boundary is a black body [22].
Working Principle
When solar radiation falls on the surface of the
SGSP, most of it penetrates and absorbed at the
bottom of the pond. The temperature of the dense
salt layer thereby increases. If there were no salt, the
bottom layer would become less dense than the top
layer and the buoyancy effect would cause this water
rise up and thus the layers would mix. Heat from the
surface of the pond is then rapidly dissipated to the
surroundings. But the denser salt layer at the bottom
of a SGSP prevents the heat to be transferred to the
top layer of fresh water by natural convection. Due
to this the temperature of the bottom layer may rise
up to 95 C making the SGSP a unique energy trap
with added advantage of built-in long-term heat
storage capacity [15], [19].
Thermal Performance
The thermal performance of a SGSP which is similar
to that of a conventional flat plate solar collector has
been shown by Srinivasan [20]. Assuming steady
state condition,

e a u
Q Q Q =
where =
u
Q useful heat extracted, =
a
Q solar
energy absorbed and =
e
Q heat losses.
The thermal efficiency of a SGSP is defined as
I Q
u
/ = q
where I is the solar energy incident on the pond.
I Q
e
/
0
= q q
where = = I Q
a
/
0
q optical efficiency of the pond.
Again, ) (
0 a s e
T T U Q =
where =
a
T ambient temperature
and =
0
U over-all heat-loss coefficient
Neglecting heat losses from the bottom and sides of
the pond and assuming the temperature of the upper
mixed layer to be the same as the ambient,
b K U
w
/
0
=

where =
w
K thermal conductivity of water
and = b thickness of the gradient zone
A steady state analysis of a SGSP that includes the
effect of solar radiation absorption in the gradient
zone on the temperature profile has been given by
Nielsen [20].
In steady state, the energy equation can be written as
) / ( ) / (
2 2
dZ d I dZ T d K t =
where = K thermal conductivity of water
and = t fraction of solar radiation I
reaching a depth . Z
On integration this equation gives

] ) / ( ) ( ) ( )[ / ( ) / (
2
1 Z
dZ dT Z Z K I dZ dT + = t t

where =
1
Z interface between the upper
convective zone and the gradient zone
and =
2
Z interface between the gradient
zone and storage zone
If q is the fraction of the incident solar energy
which is extracted from the system as heat, including
heat losses, then the energy balance of the storage
zone gives
)] ) ( )[ / ( ) / (
2
q t = Z K I dZ dT
z

Combining the above two equations the temperature
profile in the gradient zone is obtained as
] ) ( )[( / ( ) / ( q t = Z K I dZ dT
The effect of ground-heat losses on the performance
of a SGSP has been analyzed by Hull et al [20], [24].
They have expressed the ground heat-loss coefficient
as
) / / 1 ( A bP D K U
g
+ =
where = K ground conductivity, = D
depth of water table, = P pond perimeter, = A
surface area
and = b a constant whose value is around
0.9 (depending upon the side slope).
The thermal efficiency of a steady state solar pond
now becomes

I
T U
I
T K
dZ Z
Z Z
g
z
z
w
A
=
}
2
1
) (
1
1 2
t q
where = AT temperature difference
between the storage zone and the upper mixed layer.
Stability of Solar Pond
A solar pond is said to be statically stable if its
density increases with height from the top. Wind
blowing at the top surface and heating of the side
walls, etc. cause disturbance to a solar pond. The

criterion of dynamic stability is rather tough and is
obtained by perturbation analysis of the basic laws of
conservation of mass, momentum and energy [20].
The stability criterion is written as

(
+
+
c
c
<
c
c
1 Pr
1 Sc
Z
S
Z
T
S T
| |
where =
(
c
c
=
T
p
T
|
1
thermal
expansion coefficient
=
(
c
c
+ =
S
S
|
1
salinity
expansion coefficient
= Pr Prandtl number
= Sc Schmidt number
For typical conditions, this result is simplified to

Z
T
Z
S
c
c
>
c
c
19 . 1
where S is in kg/m
3
and T in C.
The above criterion has to be satisfied at all points
within the gradient zone in order to prevent
development of internal convective zones within the
gradient zone. A safety margin of 2 is essential as
recommended by Hull et al [20], [25].
Safety margin (SM) is defined as

l theoritica actual
Z
S
Z
S
SM
|
.
|
\
|
c
c
|
.
|
\
|
c
c
=
where

Z
T
Sc Z
S
S
T
l theoritica
c
c
(
+
+
=
|
.
|
\
|
c
c
1
1 Pr
|
|

The thickness of the gradient zone can be reduced by
the development of internal convective zones or
erosion of the boundaries of the gradient zone.
Wind-induced mixing is primarily responsible for
the erosion of the gradient zone-surface zone
interface and can be minimized by using floating
plastic nets or pipes. The density and temperature
gradients at the gradient zone -storage zone interface
causes the erosion of the gradient zone-storage zone
interface. The gradient zone -storage zone interface
remains stationary, which was experimentally found
by Nielsen [20], if the salinity and temperature
gradients satisfy the following relationship
| |
63 . 0
Z T A Z S c c = c c
where A = 28 (kg/m
4
)(m/K)
0.63
.

Management of Solar Pond
Typical Construction:
Size of a SGSP ranges from hundreds to thousands
square meters in surface area. These are 1-5 m deep.
Typically these are lined with a layer of sand
insulation and then a dark plastic or rubber
impermeable liner material [17].

Salt used:
Sodium chloride (NaCl) is used normally.
Magnesium chloride (MgCl
2
), sodium nitrate
(NaNO
3
), sodium carbonate (Na
2
CO
3
), sodium
sulfate (Na
2
SO
4
), ammonium nitrate (NH
4
NO
3
),
fertilizer salts as urea (NH
2
CO.NH
2
) satisfy the
stability criterion and thus considered suitable for a
solar pond [17], [26].
Site selection:
Since solar ponds are horizontal collectors, sites
should be at low to moderate northern latitudes, that
is, latitudes between -40 to + 40 degree [16].
Soil character:
Evaluation of geological soil character is necessary
because the underline earth should be free from
stresses, strain and crack, which could cause
differential thermal expansions, resulting in earth
movement if the structure is not homogeneous [16].
As thermal conductivity of soil increases greatly
with moisture content the water table of the site must
be at least a few meters below the bottom of the
pond to minimize the heat loss [16].
Forming the Salinity Gradient:
First the storage layer is formed with high
concentration brine solution mixed in bottom. Then
layers (10-20 cm thick) of decreasing salinity
stacked on top of the storage layer using horizontal
diffuser. Lastly fresh water is the final layer pumped
on the surface [17], [27]. Fig. 2 shows the formation
of the salinity gradient.
Maintenance of Salinity Gradient:
The concentration gradient existing in SGSP leads to
steady diffusion of salt from higher to lower
concentration, that is, from bottom to top through the
gradient zone. The transport of salt through the
gradient zone by diffusion is expressed as

b D S S Q
u l m
/ ] ) [( =
where b = thickness of gradient zone, D = mass
diffusion coefficient and =
u l
S S , salinity in lower
and mixed layers respectively [20].
So, stability is to be maintained by introducing salt at
the bottom while the top is frequently washed with
fresh water. When solar radiation fall on the pond,
the part which is transmitted to the bottom heats the
lower layer and as a result inverse temperature
gradients are set in. These are temperature gradients
that are reversed from the normal. Inverse
temperature gradients are maintained to eliminate
convection currents that occur due to temperature
difference during normal temperature gradient [16].

Obstructions and Remedies
1. Cleanliness of pond since transmittance
can be reduced due to contaminants.
Filtration can remove contaminants.
Construction of larger ponds can
minimize the effect of contaminants.
2. Increase of UCZ caused by surface waves
and evaporation.
Use of floating nets and wind barriers can
reduce surface waves and mixing of
UCZ.
3. Algae and bacterial growth.
Algae growth can be controlled by
adding bleaching powder. Alternatively,
algae growth can be minimized by adding
1.5 mg CuSO
4
per liter of water. If the
water used is alkaline, CuSO
4
will not
dissolve.
The pond clarity can be maintained and
the thermal efficiency of the solar pond
can be improved by using a combination
of chemical and biological treatment
methods. Hydrochloric acid could be
used initially as a shock treatment to kill
all the algae and then introduction of
brine shrimps would control the growth
of algal and maintain transparency [49].
Cupricide is found to be more effective
than chlorine and is therefore
recommended chemical for algae control
in solar ponds. Chlorine is more corrosive
than Cupricide due to the acidic effect it
has on the pH [50].
4. Horizontal temperature gradient created
by salt solution and removal.
Injecting and removing salt solutions
very slowly can minimize horizontal
temperature gradient [16], [20], [23].
Heat extraction
For extracting energy stored in the bottom layer, hot
water is removed continuously from the bottom by a
pump, passed though an external heat exchanger or
an evaporator and then returned so as to heat this
water again. Another method of heat removal is
extracting heat with a heat transfer fluid by pumping
it through a heat exchanger placed on the bottom of
the pond [15], [22].
Heat is extracted from a SGSP conventionally by
drawing the heat from the LCZ only. This is done
with the help of an in-pond heat exchanger located in
the LCZ. A heat transfer fluid is circulating in a
closed cycle extracts heat from the internal heat
exchanger and transfers its thermal energy through
an external heat exchanger. Fig. 3 shows this method
of heat extraction used for heating application [28].

The 3000 m
2
solar pond at Pyramid Hill, Australia
used this method.
Fig. 4 shows another conventional method of heat
extraction by pumping the hot brine from the top of
the LCZ through an external heat exchanger and then
sending back the brine at a lower temperature to the
bottom of the LCZ. The velocity of the brine
circulated is to be regulated in order to prevent
erosion of the gradient layer [28]. An example of this
type of heat extraction is the sodium chloride SGSP
of 3000 m
2
constructed at El Paso, USA in 1983
[29].
A novel system of heat extraction for improved
efficiency is to extract heat from the non-convective
gradient layer of a SGSP as well as, or instead of,
from the lower convective zone (LCZ). This method
has been analyzed theoretically and compared with
the experimental results at Bundoora East, RMIT.
An in-pond heat exchanger made of polyethylene
pipe has been used to extract heat for over 2 months.
Heat extraction from the gradient layer increases the
overall efficiency of the SGSP by up to 55%,
compared with conventional method of heat
extraction solely from the LCZ [28], [30].
Examples of Solar ponds
El Paso Solar Pond:
The El Paso Solar Pond project was initiated by the
University of Texas at El Paso in 1983. It is a
research, development and demonstration project. It
has been operating since May 1986 showing
electricity, process heat and fresh water can be
produced successfully in the Southwestern United
States using solar pond technology [55].
Pyramid Hill Solar Pond:
A consortium of RMIT University, Geo-Eng
Australia Pty Ltd and Pyramid Salt Pty Ltd has
finished a project by the use of a solar pond located
at the Pyramid Hill salt works in Northern Victoria.
Its purpose is to capture and store solar energy using
pond water which can go up to 80
0
C [56]. The heat
produced by the pond will be used for commercial
salt production as well as for aquaculture,
specifically producing brine shrimps for stock feed.
Plan is there to generate electricity from the heat
stored in the pond in a subsequent stage [57].
Bhuj Solar Pond:
The first large-scale solar pond in industrial
environment to cater actual user demand is the 6000
m
2
solar pond in Bhuj, India. It supplied about 15
million litres of hot water in total to the dairy at an
average temperature of 75
0
C
between September 1993 and April 1995 [58].

Ohio Solar Ponds:
Four SGSP have been designed, built and operated in
Ohio by Ohio State University.. Two solar ponds
were constructed in Columbus for physical studies,
one solar pond was constructed at the Ohio
Agriculture Research and Development Center at
Wooster and one solar pond was constructed in
Miamisburg to heat a community swimming pool
and recreational building. Data and
recommendations have been developed from these
research efforts on site selection, linear selection, salt
gradient establishment, heat extraction and
environmental protection. Sodium chloride was used
as the stabilizing salt for each pond. The costs of
building solar ponds varied from $38/m
2
to $60/m
2

[59].
SGSP applied to Desalination
Desalination is termed to be any of several
processes which remove some amount of salt and
other minerals from water. Generally speaking,
desalination refers to extraction of salts and
minerals, as in soil desalination. Desalination of
water is done for converting salt water to fresh water
to make it suitable for human consumption or
irrigation. Sometimes the process gives out table salt
as a by-product. Many seagoing ships and
submarines use desalination. Large-scale
desalination is very costly compared to the use of
fresh water from rivers or ground water as it
typically uses extremely huge amount of energy as
well as specialized, expensive infrastructure. But,
beside recycled water this is one of the non-rainfall
dependent water sources particularly countries like
Australia which traditionally have depended on
rainfall in dams to supply their drinking water. As
scarcity of water has appeared as a major problem all
throughout the world desalination is getting priority
to meet the increasing demands for fresh water. One
of the most important international health issues is
clean potable water. The warm arid countries in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Southern
Asia within the latitudes 15-35
0
N are the areas with
the severest water shortages. The increase in ground
water salinity and infrequent rainfall characterize
these areas. Simultaneous increase in industrial and
agricultural activities with the increasing world
population growth all throughout the world leads to
the depletion and pollution of fresh water resources
[38], [41]. During the last couple of years
desalination technologies have been significantly
developed. Large energy consumption occurs in the
major commercial desalination processes using oil
and natural gas as heat and electricity, while
emission of harmful CO
2
. Kalogirou estimated that
the production of 1000 m
3
/day of fresh water

requires 10,000 of oil/year [51]. This is of high
significance as it needs a recurrent energy expense
which only a few of the water-short areas can afford.
Alternative sources energy, especially, renewable
energy sources have been drawn attraction to sea
water desalination [42]. However, today only 0.02%
of the global desalination is run by renewable energy
systems [46]. Solar distillation presents an
ecologically advantageous means of the use of
renewable energy [39]. Due to the diffuse nature of
solar energy, large-scale desalination plants using
solar energy have the problems of relatively low
productivity rate, the low thermal efficiency rate and
the considerable land area requirement. But the very
nature of solar desalination plants is free energy and
insignificant operation cost. Besides, this technology
is suitable for small-scale production, especially in
remote arid areas and islands, where there is scarcity
of supply of conventional energy [54].
Desalination involves desalting a variety of raw
waters (sea water, brackish ground water or
industrial waste-water) through suitable treatment
and obtaining fresh water for drinking and irrigation.
Solar energy has been used for distillation of
brackish or saline water for a considerably long time.
The current leading desalination process is thermal
desalination which includes multistage flash
distillation (MSF) and Multi-effect distillation
(MED). Thermal desalination is an energy-intensive
process. During the last several years substantial
amount of research work has been done on
desalination using solar energy. For sea water
desalination there are mainly two approaches for
solar energy utilization. The solar distillation plant
may consist of integrated or separated systems for
the solar collector and the distiller. Integrated
systems are termed as direct solar desalination which
involves different types of solar stills. Separated
systems are called indirect solar distillation. The first
approach is suitable for small production systems,
such as, utilization of green house effect to evaporate
salty water in a simple solar still [42]. Solar stills are
used in regions where the fresh water demand is less
than 200 m
3
/day [52]. The other approach often
involves more than one subsystem: one for energy
collection, another for energy storage and the third
subsystem for energy utilization in the desalination
process. The desalination process may be MSF,
MED, vapor compression (VC), reverse osmosis
(RO), membrane distillation (MD) or electrodialysis
[38], [40]. One significant problem that affect the
still performance is the direct contact between the
collector and the saline water which causes corrosion
and scaling in the still and thus reduces the thermal
efficiency [43]. The water desalination with
humidification-dehumidification (HD) uses air as the

working fluid, which eliminates this problem. The
overall efficiency of the desalination plant increases
by combining the principle of humidification-
dehumidification with solar desalination, and thus
seems to be the best method for water desalination
by solar energy [44]. A HD system consists of a
compact unit containing two heat exchangers for
evaporation and condensation respectively. The
constructions are lightweight usually and
inexpensive, and work at atmospheric pressure. As
desalination capacity is relatively low, the system
performance must be improved to make it
economically competitive [42], [44]. Solar ponds
and parabolic troughs are the most frequently used
solar thermal technology for desalination [53].
Thermal desalination using SGSP is one of the most
promising solar desalination technologies. Solar
ponds generated thermal energy to drive a
desalination plant has been investigated by Tabor
[33], Tleimat and Howe [34], [35], Guy and Ko [36]
and Posnansky [37]. The United States government
used solar pond technology especially for this
purpose. The Water Desalination Research and
Development (DesalR&D) Program was authorized
by Congress under the Water Desalination Act (Act)
of 1996. The Act authorized program funding began
in October 1997 for a six year period. To start the
program, funding was appropriated at $3.7 million
for fiscal year 1998 The act is based on the
fundamental need in the US and world-wide for
additional sources of potable water.
SGSP enables the most convenient and least
expensive option compared to other solar
desalination technologies to store heat for daily and
seasonal cycles. For steady and constant water
production, this is very important from the view
point of operational advantage and economic benefit.
The heat storage enables SGSP to power desalination
during night time and cloudy days. SGSP used
desalination for a 24-hour a day operation needs only
half the size to produce same quantity of water
compared to other solar desalination options. For
desalination SGSP can make the use of reject brine
as a basis to build it. This advantage is very
important when SGSP is considered for inland
desalting for fresh water production or brine
concentration to be used in salinity control and
environmental clean-up applications.
At present the most common and simple technique
for large-scale desalination is MSF, which produces
fresh water a total amount of about 10 million
ton/day globally [42].
A solar pond multi-stage flash distillation system
(SPMSF) comprises a set of evaporative condensers
and heat exchanger for extracting heat from the

SGSP. Repetitive cycles of evaporation and
condensation using low temperature heat from the
SGSP produces fresh water. Fig. 5 shows the
schematic diagram of solar pond desalination [15],
[22].
Several medium scale MSF desalination plants using
solar energy have been recently implemented.
Blocks findings show that MSF plants can produce
6-60 L/m
2
/day, whereas for typical solar stills it is 3-
4 L/m
2
/day [45].
A SGSP is one of the most common types of solar
collectors. The SGSP driven desalination plant in
Margarita de Savoya, Italy, has a capacity of 50-60
m
3
/day and that in El Paso, Texas has the capacity of
19 m
3
/day. Parabolic trough collector is another
frequently occurring source for solar energy which is
used in a MSF plant in Kuwait with a production rate
of 100 m
3
/day [46].
Desalination using solar troughs was tested mainly in
the USA. Small-scale units are commercially
available. These combine the MSF process with
steam generating parabolic troughs. A typical plant
produces 450 L/day in three stages by using 48 kW.
The current cost of the collectors (about 45 m
2
) is
about US $ 10,000, which translates into production
costs of 7.9 US$/m
3
(5% interest, 20 years life time,
annual O & M equivalent to 3% of the investment
costs, 85% plant factor) [47].
Szacsvay et al. has describes a desalination system
consisting of a solar pond as the heat source and an
Atlantis autoflash multistage desalination unit. The
Atlantis Company developed an adapted MSF
system called Autoflash, since the standard MSF
process was not able to operate couple to any heat
source. The basis of autoflash process is multistage
flash process concept. Computer simulation and
experimental results of a small-size solar pond and
desalination subsystem in Switzerland which had
been in operation for 9 years were done for
performance and layout data. It was found that the
cost of distillate could be reduced from $ 5.48/m
3
for
small desalination system with a capacity of 15 to
2.39 m
3
/day for desalination systems with a capacity
of 300 m
3
/day [48].
The average daily solar energy incident in India is 5
kWh/m
2
. India is in advancement in solar pond
research and applications [2], [20]. Like India
Bangladesh is also in the tropics. It is located
between 20.30-26.38 North Latitude and 88.04-92.44
degrees East Latitude. This is an ideal location for
solar energy utilization. The daily average solar
radiation varies between 4 to 6.5 kWh/m
2
. Solar
pond appears to be highly promising for Bangladesh

[31]. Bangladesh has 68 districts in total. The 9
districts, namely, Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat,
Barguna, Patuakhali, Bhola, Pirozpur, Jhalkathi and
Coxsbazar lie in the coastal belt. The ground water
available there for drinking purpose is salty. This
water must have to be desalted in order to make
fresh water for drinking supplies. For a developing
country like Bangladesh SGSP used desalination
method is the most suitable.
Advantages
1. Diffuse radiation (cloudy days) can be
used.
2. It is a unique energy trap with built-in
long term energy storage capacity.
3. For low grade heat (below 100 C)
collection cost/m
2
of collector area of
SGSP is 1/5
th
that of flat plate collector
[15].
4. 1 kg of salt as salt-water concentrate can
produce energy 3 times more than the
heat produced by burning the same
amount of coal in the combustion
chamber [15].
5. Pollution free.
6. In Germany, cost of producing 1kWh of
electricity by a SGSP is only 21% of that
produced by photovoltaic cells [23].
Conclusions
1. Solar pond is an efficient source of
renewable heat energy.
2. Solar pond is environmentally sustainable.
3. The great advantage of solar pond it
possesses built-in long term thermal energy
storage, which no other
solar collection device match.
4. Solar pond can be economically
constructed if there is plenty of inexpensive
salt, flat land and
easy access to water.
5. A great factor in the future of solar
pond operation is the implementation of
an acceptable means of
salt recycling. This is a major point
when a solar pond is to be used on a
farm or private land. On-farm use will
predominate in the more northerly
latitudes, because of availability of
land, machinery and labor.
6. Solar pond can complement the use of
fossil fuel in industries to generate thermal energy
and
commercial electricity.
7. Solar pond is highly promising for the
tropics and the lower latitudes for
electric power generation.
8. Solar pond is eco-friendly.

9. Solar pond desalination is the most
effective for Bangladesh.
10. A solar pond multi-stage flash
distillation system appears to be
promising for the coastal districts of
Bangladesh for fresh water production.
11. Solar pond projects are yet to be started
in Bangladesh. Therefore, an
experimental project on solar pond
needs to be developed for data and
recommendations on site selection,
linear selection, salt gradient
establishment, heat extraction,
environmental protection and cost
analysis.

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Figure Captions
Figure 1 Schematic view of a SGSP
Figure 2 The formation of the salinity gradient
Figure 3 Heat extraction using an internal heat exchanger by conventional method
Figure 4 Heat extraction using an external heat exchanger by conventional method
Figure 5 Schematic diagram of solar pond desalination



Figure 1 Schematic view of a SGSP



Figure 2 The formation of the salinity gradient



Figure 3 Heat extraction using an internal heat exchanger by conventional method



Figure 4 Heat extraction using an external heat exchanger by conventional method



Figure 5 Schematic diagram of solar pond desalination

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