Experimental analysis of solar thermal integrated MD system for cogeneration of drinking water and hot water for single family villa in Dubai using flat plate and evacuated tube solar collectors

This paper presents the experimental analysis performed on solar thermal integrated membrane distillation (MD) system using flat plate and evacuated tube collectors. The system will be utilized for cogeneration of drinking water and domestic hot water for single family in Dubai comprising of four to five members. Experiments have been performed in Ras Al Khaimah Research and Innovation Centre (RAKRIC) facility. The experimental setup has been installed to achieve the required production of 15–25 L/d of drinking water and 250 L/d of hot water for domestic purposes. Experiments have been performed on MD setup at optimized flow rates of 6 L/min on hot side and 3 L/min on cold side for producing the desired distillate. The hot side and cold side MD temperature has been maintained between 60°C and 70°C, and 20°C and 30°C. The total annual energy demand comes out to be 8,223 kWh (6,000 kWh is for pure water and 2,223 kWh for hot water). The optimum aperture areas for flat plate and evacuated tube collector field have been identified as 8.5 and 7.5 m2 ,respectively. Annual energy consumption per liter for pure water production is 1, 0.85 and 0.7 kWh/L for different MD hot and cold inlet temperatures