Solar Desalination Plants; A State Of The Art

Seawater desalination is an important process to meet the increasing demand of fresh water; however, it is highly energy intensive due to the high salinity of the source. Studies on using solar energy to drive seawater desalination plants are very actively being pursued. Due to the constraints of high desalination costs, many countries are unable to afford these technologies owing to their limited access to energy sources. Therefore, as solar desalination can reduce the energy supply costs, using solar energy as the main energy source is becoming a common solution for the problem these days. Besides, the steady increasing usage of seawater desalination has demonstrated that seawater desalination is a feasible water resource free from the variations in rainfall, and solar powered desalination has been the focus of great interest recently worldwide. This state of the art report presents the principles and characteristics of some of the recently developed direct and indirect solar desalination techniques.

Keywords:

Energy , Solar Energy , Desalination