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USE OF THERMAL SOLAR ENERGY IN DISTRIBUTED SMALL-SCALE

PLANTS FOR WATER DESALINATION
Joan Carles Bruno, Alberto Coronas

Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Dept. Enginyeria Mecànica,

Avda. Països Catalans, 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain
Fax: +34 977559691, E-mail: juancarlos.bruno@urv.cat

ABSTRACT

During recent years there has been a renewed interest for the development of efficient renewable energy driven desalination systems
for distributed small-scale production that would supply remote and small communities. In this paper is presented
a short review of these technologies driven by thermal solar energy including fundamentals, technical performance data and
economics. Also in the second part of the paper are described the recent activities in this field of the Applied Thermal Engineering
research group (CREVER) at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain).

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES
Seawater represents 97.5% of all water’s planet and
is an attractive resource to obtain the desired
freshwater. Sea water consists of around 70 elements,
where six of them are almost 99% of the total
contribution. Salinity compositions of seas and oceans
and gulfs range between 28000 and 36000 ppm
although it is higher for almost closed seas
or gulfs (El-Dessouky and Ettouney, 2002).
Increment of desalination plants installed
in a short time, indicates that the need to access
to water is growing and their desalination cost
is reduced. The world desalination installed capacity
has increased from a bit more than
10 million cubic meter per day in 1986 to more than 42
million in 2006. Only in Spain the capacity
of newly commissioned plants in 2006 was higher than
400 000 m3/day (IDA Desalination, 2007) and the total
desalination capacity is higher than 2·106 m3/day.
Reverse Osmosis (RO) process is mostly used.
Nowadays, the specific main energy consumption of
RO with an efficient energy recovery is about 3
kWh/m3. It results in an annual electricity consumption
of 2190 GWh, mainly generated by fossil fuels with the
consequent environmental damage. Therefore, the
introduction of renewable energy-driven desalination
would be an environmental-friendly solution for the
problem of fresh water shortage. In addition, renewable
energy-powered desalination is frequently the only
possibility of a secure fresh water supply in developing
countries, in rural communities where no electricity
grid is available.
Adoption of solar desalination can be made for
either small-scale distributed units, which are suitable
for remote and small communities, or for larger size
plants, which can be integrated in the national energy
supply system. On the other hand, new small-scale
desalination units are being made available in a limited
number or are under development and are more
expensive than conventional large scale desalination
units (Ettouney and Rizzuti, 2007).
The objective of this paper is to present a short
review of desalination technologies suitable
to be integrated into thermal solar energy systems to
produce fresh water and also report on the research
activities in this field of the research group on Applied
Thermal Engineering (CREVER) at the University
Rovira i Virgili. Only solar thermal energy system will
be covered although other renewable energy
technologies exist such as the solar PhotoVoltaic (PV)-
driven RO desalination systems which normally use
batteries as energy storage. The main drawbacks of
such systems are low performance and very high costs
of PV cells and problems of batteries – i.e. high
maintenance and replacement as well as toxic wastes –
or also wind energy driven systems.
FUNDAMENTALS OF WATER DESALINATION
The term desalination refers to the process
of withdrawing the solvent water from saline water
obtaining almost pure water with a very low content of
dissolved salts and brine with a high concentration of
solutes as is illustrated Figure 1.
This separation process produces two streams, fresh
water and a saline solution (brine) with some required
energy input. Saline water is usually classified as
brackish water when the salt concentration, mostly
sodium chloride, is less than 10000 ppm and sea water
when the salinity exceeds about 30000 ppm.

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Sea water
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a desalination process
Seawater desalination can be achieved using
different technologies and also the required energy can
come from fossil conventional, waste heat
or renewable energy sources. Using desalination
processes freshwater can be obtained from oceans with
the possibility to apply renewable energy resources in
them (Kalogirou, 2005, Mathioulakis, 2007).
There are to date no generally agreed-on norms
or standards to assess the performance of solar
desalination systems. The parameters usually used to
the rating of thermal desalination processes
performance are the gained output ratio (GOR) and the
performance ratio (PR). In general, if thermal energy
drives the desalination process, two parameters are
normally used in order to measure the process
efficiency:
· GOR (Gain Output Ratio), defined as the rate
between kg of external steam supply and kg of
product obtained.
· PR (Performance Ratio), defined as kg of product
obtained per 2300 kJ, that is, approximately, the
latent heat at temperatures normally used in
distillation processes.
In spite of this Burgess and Lovegrove (2005) and
Banat et al, (2007) have surveyed and described the
performance metrics and units found in the desalination
literature for the report of desalination performance and
pointed out the that a lack
of uniformity in units and terminology that
is apparent in the desalination literature.
There are many classifications for desalination
methods according to the type of energy consumed:
electrical, mechanical or thermal or the kind
of separation process applied to separate salts from
water. Desalination technologies can be classified
according to several criteria:
Type of energy source used:
· Thermally driven technologies: Multi-Effect
Distillation, Multi-Stage Flash, …
· Electricity driven technologies: Reverse Osmosis,
Electrodialysis, …
Size of the application:
· Conventional large scale units: Multi-Effect
Distillation, Multi-Stage Flash, …
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Energy
Desalination Fresh water
process
Brine
· Medium-Small scale units: Membrane
Distillation, Humidification Dehumidification, …
· Ship on-board units: single-effect evaporation
systems
For a distributed renewable energy driven
desalination plant a classification according
to its size could be: small plants (1-50 m3/day),
medium (50 – 250 m3/day) and large plants (> 250
m3/day). Size of conventional plants is in the order of
several thousands of m3/day.
It should be mentioned that thermal processes are
not sensitive to the type of feed water with regard
to salinity and contamination, because the product
water is the condensed water vapour, leaving all the
impurities in the liquid phase. This is not the case of
membrane desalination processes which
do not involve phase change.
DESALINATION TECHNOLOGIES DRIVEN BY
THERMAL ENERGY
In this section are briefly described all the
desalination technologies that could be driven
by thermal energy both conventional and small-scale
distributed technologies and also those technologies
such as reverse osmosis that are driven by mechanical
energy which could be generated
by conversion from thermal energy and are suitable for
small-scale applications.
Depending on the type of desalination technology the
right type of thermal solar collector has
to be selected. High temperature concentrating
collectors, such as linear Fresnel collectors, producing
both electricity, and eventually heat through a
cogeneration configuration, could feed all types of
processes and hybrid systems also.
Multi-Stage Flash (MSF)
MSF process is based on the generation of vapour
from seawater or brine due to a sudden pressure
reduction when hot seawater enters an evacuated
chamber. The process is repeated stage by stage
at successively decreasing pressure. The number
of stages varies from 15-25 with a maximum of 40.
This process requires an external steam supply,
normally at temperature around 100ºC.
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The performance ratio is about 7-8 with
a maximum of 12. The maximum temperature
is limited to avoid scaling. The required thermal and
electrical consumption is about 50-52 kWh/m3 and 4-6
kWh/m3, respectively.
Multi-Effect Distillation (MED)
In the MED process, the steam generated in one
effect is transferred to the next effect to heat the salt
solution because the next effect is at lower temperature
and pressure. The performance of the process is
proportional to the number of effects which is usually
between 8 and 16. MED plants are commonly driven
by saturated steam at 70ºC. This technology is
provided by several manufacturers: IDE Technologies
Ltd, Entropie, Alfa Laval, etc. A modified MED
process includes a Mechanical or Thermal Vapour
Compression (MVC, TVC) of the initial vapour
generated from the saline solution to generate
additional production. The consumption of thermal and
electric energy is around 60 kWh/m3 and 2 kWh/m3,
respectively. The integration of an absorption heat
pump has been proposed to increase the system
efficiency (Alarcón-Padilla et al, 2007)). The typical
PR is about 9-10 and can increase to 25 using a heat
recovery system such as a heat pump. In another
of the proposed arrangements to drive a MED plant
with solar energy the required low pressure steam
could be obtained by the steam at the outlet
of a steam turbine driven by the steam directly
generated in concentration solar collectors
or by means of thermal oil as intermediate fluid.
Reverse Osmosis (RO)
RO requires electricity or shaft power to drive
a pump that increases the pressure of the saline solution
to that required which depend on the salt concentration.
It is normally around 70 bar for seawater desalination.
Electric energy consumption ranges from 3 kWh/m3 for
the highest capacity and efficiency units to 5 kWh/m3
for the smallest and less efficient units, when energy
recovery is used. Without energy recovery the
electrical consumption is about 10 kWh/m3 and may
exceed 15 kWh/m3 for small units. The ratio between
the flow rate of production and intake raw water
(recovery ratio) for sea water is about 30-60%. With
regard to selection, RO requires skilled workers and
availability of chemical and membranes supplies. Also
fluctuations of the available energy would damage the
system so intermediate energy storage is required.
Electrodialysis (ED)
ED is suitable for brackish water. The electrical
consumption can vary from 0.5 to 10 kWh/m3
depending on water salinity. In remote areas,
ED is most suitable than RO for brackish water
because it is more robust and its operation and
maintenance are simpler and able to adapt
to changes of available energy input.
Solar Stills
A conventional solar still has simple geometry. The
still is formed of a square or rectangular box, which is
equipped with a sloped glass cover.
The top cover of the box must be made
of transparent glass to allow for the passage of solar
energy. The desalination mechanism is similar
to that of nature. A shallow pool of brackish
or seawater absorbs solar energy and as a result
a vapour of fresh water is formed in the space above
the water. The vapour condenses on the inside of the
glass cover and is then collected
in a side through. Figure 2 shows a schematic of the
most basic form of solar stills. A simple solar still has a
low production rate of 1 l/m2/d. However, some
modifications in the design can increase the production
rate significantly (fourfold) for example using vertical
solar stills, use of multi-effect stills
or combining it with thermal solar collectors. However,
the application of this technology
is mainly limited to domestic uses.

Co
nd
Solar Radiation ens
ati
on

Water Vapor

Distillate Distillate
Collection Collection

Brine

Fig. 2. Schematic of a simple solar still

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Humidification Dehumidification (HDH)
Conventional HDH process is formed of three main
components (Fig. 3). These are the humidifier, where
the intake air humidity is increased
to saturation conditions, the condenser, where the
humidified air is cooled to condense the product water,
and the feed seawater heater. The intake seawater is
preheated in the dehumidification unit and further
heated in the feed heater to achieve the desired design
conditions with the aid of an external low grade energy
source such as solar collectors.
Fig. 3. Humidification dehumidification desalination process (Ettouney and Rizzuti, 2007)
Membrane distillation
Contrary to membranes for RO, which have
a pore diameter in the range of 0.1 to 3.5 nm,
membranes for membrane distillation have a pore
diameter of about 0.2 mm. The separation effect
of these polymer membranes is based on their
hydrophobic nature. This means that up to a certain
limiting pressure, liquid water can not enter the pores
(Fig. 4). Molecular water in the form of steam can pass
through the membrane.
On one site of the membrane there is salt water, for
example at 80ºC. if there is a lower temperature on the
other side of the membrane, created for example by a
condenser coil to 75ºC, then there exists a partial
pressure difference for water vapour across the
membrane. The water vapour condenses on the low-
temperature side and distillate is formed.
Membrane distillation technology for desalination
is under development by several European research
centres and companies (Fraunhofer Institute,
TNO - Memstill and Scarab).
RESEARCH ON COMBINED THERMAL
SOLAR ENERGY AND DESALINATION
In this section are described two research projects
related with desalination technologies using solar
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Multi-effect humidification-dehumidification (MEH)
systems are based on the same HDH principles but
offer higher efficiency. The energy demand is in the
range of 120 kWh/m3. According to Müller-Holst
(2007) the MEH is competitive
in comparison with RO-PV for small scale applications
if electricity cost is at or higher than 0.15 €/kWh. This
type of units has entered the commercialisation stage
(Tinox-Mage and Rewater system).
energy and waste heat at the research group Crever in
the Univ. Rovira I Virgili.
Solar ORC systems for reverse osmosis
Description
For small capacity desalination systems RO
is so far one of the most efficient desalination
alternatives taking care of all the mentioned
limitations. Their combination with photovoltaic solar
collectors is limited primarily by their cost and the
need to use batteries for energy storage.
A possible solution could be to take advantage
of the combination of thermal solar energy and Organic
Rankine Cycles (ORC) to drive the RO compressor as
proposed and studied by some authors (Bruno et al,
2008 and Manolakos et al, 2007).
An Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a
thermodynamic Rankine or vapour power cycle that
uses an organic working fluid instead of water and is
known to yield excellent performance at temperatures
up to about 350ºC and especially at low power
capacities. The research and development of the ORC
technology has been focused in the production of
electricity, mainly related to recovery of low
temperature waste heat, geothermal heat, biomass, or
solar energy. Many references to these applications are
available in the literature. However, the development
of solar ORC for desalination is very limited.
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Fig. 4. Principle of membrane Distillation (Banata et al, 2007)

In the proposed system (Fig. 5) the working fluid is
heated to boiling, and the expanding vapour
is used to drive a turbine and more generally any
expander. This expander provides all the energy
required to drive the high-pressure RO pump and the
high pressure ORC and solar plant circulation pumps.
The energy could be transferred directly
as shaft power in a direct coupling
or by intermediate conversion to AC electricity.
Power cycle alternatives
Different technologies can be used to expand the
fluid to produce mechanical energy: positive
displacement systems (reciprocating and rotary),
turbomachinery (turbines) and even specific designs.
Different selection criteria can be applied. According to
the size of the ORC system, for large capacity systems
the choice should be a turbine. For low capacity
systems the high rotating speed

Fig. 5. Diagram of the proposed solar desalination ORC system (Bruno et al, 2008)

of turbines make them not useful for direct drive of
machinery requiring some kind of special gearbox and
also a special high speed electric generator and power
converter is required for electric generation similar to
the ones used for micro gas turbines. For medium
capacity systems the most suitable technology is a
screw expander and for smaller systems, just a few kW,
the preferred option could be the scroll expander. One
of the most extended ideas in the field of expander
development is to adapt mass-produced (cheap)
displacement compressors for use as reasonably
efficient expanders. Scroll expanders are operated at

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lower speed than the other technologies In the second part of the paper were examined two case
so it is suitable for a direct mechanical coupling studies one from Almería and another one
between the expander and the high pressure pump of in Barcelona that can be considered representative
the RO subsystem. The drawback is that although the of two different levels of solar radiation characteristic
operation in reverse of a scroll compressor is feasible it of the Mediterranean area of Spain.
will not work at its optimal conditions working as an In these case studies the area of the solar field
expander (Huff and Radermacher, 2003). Screw-type collectors was calculated, considering both brackish
expanders can and sea water desalting applications for a handling
be more easily adapted from compressors. capacity of 15 m3/day modelling the solar and
desalination system using the TRNSYS software.
Modelling and results An economic estimation was also reported
In Bruno et al 2008 the ORC system was modelled comparing the presented results with those
using the Aspen Plus process simulator, with the of an equivalent Photovoltaic-RO plant. The technical-
required inputs from other programmes economic results obtained for the two locations
to model Reverse Osmosis (ROSA, 2006) and thermal suggested the adequate thermal solar technology to be
solar plants. The first part of this paper analyses a that represented by the compact Parabolic Trough
comprehensive list of candidate working fluids for the Collector (PTC solitem) collector system (Table 1)
ORC desalination application, and instead of the other solar collector options (FPC: Flat
a selection is made of the most interesting fluids Plate Collectors and ETC: Evacuated Tubes Collectors
according to the type of solar collectors used or PTC Eurotrough: conventional Parabolic Trough
in each case. For example, in the case of compact collectors).
Parabolic Trough collectors the isopentane working The use of an equivalent photovoltaic system
fluid was selected for the ORC cycle. The optimal to generate electricity to drive the RO desalination
operating temperature was calculated for the solar ORC system had a higher cost than the optimised solar ORC-
integrated with the RO plant that optimises the global RO system specially when using the best solar thermal
ORC-thermal solar plant efficiency. technology (Table 1).

Table 1. Specific annual cost in €/m3 of the Solar ORC desalination plant for both geographic locations (Bruno et
al, 2008)
ORC-RO-PTC ORC-RO-PTC
Location Raw water ORC-RO-FPC ORC-RO-ETC RO-PV
Compact EuroTrough
Brackish 2.86 2.36 2.03 2.30 3.80
Almería
Seawater 7.99 6.28 4.32 4.90 12.83
Brackish 3.31 3.29 2.36 2.33 4.31
Barcelona
Seawater 9.54 7.87 5.50 4.66 14.85

Single-effect evaporation systems

Single-effect desalination systems are also
an interesting option for solar desalination that could
be an alternative to solar Reverse Osmosis systems
driven by PV, wind energy or ORC plants. Although
single-effect systems are not very efficient systems, its
roughness, reliability and low cost make them worthy
to be studied and compared with these desalination
systems. Currently these units are used on-board ships
to supply potable water using waste heat. Their
capacity ranges from only 0.5 m3/day up to about 300
m3/day with
a required thermal energy supply of about 700
kWh/m3. At the Crever – URV was characterised
a single-effect evaporation desalination system
(Fontemar TCS-1) with a maximum capacity of less
than 2 m3/day (Fig. 6). A simplified diagram
is shown in Figure 2.
The desalination unit consists basically
of an ejector and two chambers interconnected with a
demister (Fig. 7). In this unit, the evaporator tubes
containing the driving hot water are submerged
in a liquid pool. The liquid surrounding the submerged
tubes reaches saturation temperature for the specific
conditions of salinity and pressure and evaporation
proceeds. The formed vapour flows through a demister
that removes the entrained liquid droplets. The vapour
flows to the condenser, where it condenses on the
outside surface of the condenser tubes. As
condensation takes place, the latent heat of
condensation preheats the feed liquid in the condenser
before entering the evaporator unit. The ejector reduces
absolute pressure of equipment and removes strong
salinity seawater (brine).

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Fig. 6. Single-effect evaporation system connected to the test bench

Fig. 7. Schematic diagram of the single-effect seawater desalination unit

As an example of the results obtained in figure 8 is
shown the production capacity of the desalination unit
as a function of the input temperature to the system that
could be represented by the outlet temperature from the
solar collector field and also as a function of the sea
water input temperature.
For these results the hot water input flow rate was 1.26
kg/s.
CONCLUSIONS
Combination of thermal solar energy and desalination
systems would generate a sustainable source of fresh
water reducing air pollutant emissions and green house
gases. Conventional thermal driven desalination
technologies (MED and MSF plants) are only suitable
for large size plants and consume steam at 70-100ºC
that is not usually available in solar collectors working
at these temperatures. However, small-scale
desalination units for remote or small communities are
already available in a limited number or under
development but are more expensive than conventional
large scale desalination units. According to recent
studies (Fiorenza et al, 2007) the water cost for
a conventional desalination unit is in the order
of 0.5-1 $/m3 while for a thermal solar driven
desalination unit of 5000 m3/day is the double and it
could be around 3 $/m3 for smaller capacities (500
m3/day).
Electricity driven desalination systems suitable for
small-scale applications such as RO and ED could be
driven by thermal solar energy when some kind of
power generation conversion system is used. Other
technologies such as Humidification and
Dehumification or membrane distillation can use
directly the thermal energy generated by the solar
collectors for small-scale applications.
Up to now all the renewable energy driven
desalination systems are experimental
or demonstrations plants but a renewed interest
is expected as long as the cost of solar energy becomes
more competitive against fossil fuels costs.

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Fig. 8. Production of water as a function of the input hot water and sea water temperatures for the tested single-
effect evaporation unit
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the partial
funding provided for this research to Ministry of
Education and Science of Spain under the projects:
ENE2005-08381-C03-03 and PSE-370300-2006-5.
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