Large-Scale Decentralized Solar Desalination: A Blueprint to Make Efficient Day-Long Technologies a Reality

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dc.contributor.advisorAlabastri, Alessandroen_US
dc.creatorSchmid, Williamen_US
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-01T19:49:56Zen_US
dc.date.created2023-08en_US
dc.date.issued2023-08-08en_US
dc.date.submittedAugust 2023en_US
dc.date.updated2023-09-01T19:49:57Zen_US
dc.description.abstractAmong potential solutions to global water scarcity, thermal desalination is a flexible choice for water treatment, given its key advantages in robustness and limited salinity dependence. Light can power thermal desalination by dissipating electromagnetic energy into heat. Solar-driven photothermal desalination (SDPD) can lead to decentralized water purification, improving accessibility and reducing the environmental impact over conventional, heavy infrastructure-based desalination practices like reverse osmosis. Unfortunately, today’s best decentralizable SDPD technologies barely surpass 10% of the thermodynamic limit for thermal desalination. Furthermore, there is limited consensus on how to best evaluate and compare the efficiency of diverse solar-driven systems, particularly with respect to their day-long performance under natural, time-varying intensity. Recently, we proposed a generalized approach for achieving efficient, scalable, and day-long SDPD. Instead of optimizing individual components like solar absorbers and evaporators, our approach emphasizes the critical transfers of power underpinning the entire thermal desalination process. In particular, the minimization of environmental losses and maximization of heat recovery depend on each other, and their combination is paramount in bolstering the performance of real-world practical systems. Guided by our approach, we have determined that SDPD systems of a specific size and input salinity operate most efficiently at a specific optimal input power, a previously understudied fact with major implications on the day-long operation of modular networks of individual systems. By focusing on optimizing system-wide thermal energy recovery, loss mitigation and exploiting dynamic energy recovery schemes that can be tuned adaptively for time-varying input power, highly efficient, cost-effective systems can be designed to best take advantage of available light.en_US
dc.embargo.lift2024-08-01en_US
dc.embargo.terms2024-08-01en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationSchmid, William. "Large-Scale Decentralized Solar Desalination: A Blueprint to Make Efficient Day-Long Technologies a Reality." (2023) Master's Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/115239.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/115239en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectdesalinationen_US
dc.subjectSDPDen_US
dc.subjectsolar desalinationen_US
dc.subjectoptimal heat recoveryen_US
dc.subjectenergy efficiencyen_US
dc.subjectscalabilityen_US
dc.titleLarge-Scale Decentralized Solar Desalination: A Blueprint to Make Efficient Day-Long Technologies a Realityen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentElectrical and Computer Engineeringen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineEngineeringen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelMastersen_US
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen_US
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