Abstract
Compared to solar water heaters, high-temperature solar air heaters have received relatively little investigation and have resulted in few commercial products. However, in the context of a humidification-dehumidification (HD) desalination cycle, air heating offers significant performance gains for the cycle. Heating at a constant temperature and constant heat output is also important for HD cycle performance. The use of built in phase change material (PCM) storage is found to produce consistent air outlet temperatures throughout the day or night. In this study, the PCM has been implemented directly below the absorber plate. Using a two dimensional transient finite element model, it is found that a PCM layer of 8. cm below the absorber plate is sufficient to produce a consistent output temperature close to the PCM melting temperature with a time-averaged collector thermal efficiency of 35%. An experimental energy storage collector with an 8. cm thick PCM layer was built and tested in a variety of weather and operating conditions. Experimental results show strong agreement with model in all cases.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3417-3429 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Solar Energy |
| Volume | 86 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank Alexander Guerra for his help with the FEM software, P. Gandhidasan for helpful discussions of the solar design, and also M.K. Adham for his assistance in performing the experiments. The authors would also like to thank the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals for funding the research reported in this paper through the Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM.
Keywords
- Dehumidification
- Desalination
- Energy storage
- Humidification
- Phase change material
- Solar air heater
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- General Materials Science
