Design and optimisation of inclined solar still with secondary reflectors for wastewater treatment
Date21st Jul 2022
Time03:00 PM
Venue Through the google meet link: https://meet.google.com/afq-wrio-xze
PAST EVENT
Details
With the increased usage of fossil fuel sources for various process heat applications, the net CO2 emissions from these industries have also increased. Considering the environmental impact, these process heat applications can be powered by solar thermal technologies and can be made self-sustainable. Inclined solar still is one such technology to harness solar thermal energy. The present study focuses on the performance of inclined still upon integrating with flat reflectors for concentration. The optimum position of the reflectors, along with the optimum angle for various months of the year, are determined by developing an in-house mathematical model. The validation of the mathematical model is planned with experimental investigations. The optimised concentrated inclined still is integrated with the process heat applications for enhanced performance. In the past study, a conventional jaggery production process was developed into a self-sustainable solar thermal powered process. A detailed analysis of the process was presented in the previous seminar talk. Similarly, this study gives a viable option for another major problem of blackwater treatment. To overcome water scarcity, adverse effects on the environment due to improper disposal and challenges in transportation, the treatment is proposed close to the source of waste generation. A separate treatment of wastewater and semisolid waste is proposed and performed in two different solar thermal energy circuits. The wastewater is treated to generate distillate yield, whereas the semisolid waste is processed to form biomass. This proposed system is designed for a small-scale treatment capacity of 55 kg/day of wastewater and 2.4 kg/day of semisolid waste. The viability of the proposed system is assessed considering the thermodynamic, environmental and economic aspects using a developed mathematical model for varying solar radiation and ambient conditions of Chennai, India. The maximum distillate efficiency of 37.85% is achieved under low-pressure operation. The environmental analysis shows effective net CO2 mitigations of about 95.31 tons during its lifetime of 20 years. From the economic analysis, the system payback period is reduced further with a decrease in the financed interest rate and an increase in distillate production cost. The system performance upon deployment in various water-stressed regions worldwide is analysed and presented in an atlas that shows the proposed system's potential. Both these process heat applications will be further analysed for performance enhancement with the integration of concentrated inclined still.
Speakers
Mr. Policherla Venkata Sai (ME17D408)
Department of Mechanical Engineering