Performance assessment of water production from solar cooling system in humid climate

This study aims to investigate water extraction process from a solar cooling system using a vapor absorption chiller under variable fresh air ratios. The system consists of an evacuated tube solar collector, lithium bromide absorption chiller and a fan coil unit (FCU). A parametric study is carried out to investigate the effects of flow rate of the fluid in the collector, solar insolation, fresh air volume ratio, temperature and humidity on the system performance and rate of water production. The operating conditions for the best performance are identified in this work. The results showed maximum collector efficiency of 0.66 at an optimum flow rate of the collector fluid of 0.3 kg/s at A_c = 28 m², T_f = 45 °C, I = 800 W/m² and R = 50%. For the same conditions, useful energy to the generator was found to be 14.8 kW and water production rate was 8 L/h. Using the climate data of a typical day of August for Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the findings indicated that the chiller COP and water production rate, respectively, reached maximum (0.73 and 6.6 L/h) at noon when the incident solar flux is peak (935 W/m²) for 45% fresh air volume ratio.