Sharif Digital Repository

Sweeping gas membrane distillation process was studied using flat sheet hydrophobic PTFE membrane. The effects of operating parameters, including feed temperature, feed flow rate, sweeping gas flow rate, and feed concentration on the permeate flux, were determined. The feed temperature significantly influenced the permeate flux. Increasing the feed temperature increased the permeate flux. The increase of feed concentration caused to reduce the permeate flux due to the increase of concentration polarization effect and reduction of vapor pressure difference. Sweeping gas flow rate led to increase the permeate flux due to reduction of vapor pressure in the permeate side. Higher air flow rate... 

Theoretical and experimental analysis of performance of a solar desalination pond as a second stage of proposed zero discharge desalination processes is considered in this work. Major purpose of this proposed process is producing salt and potable water. Experiments are conducted for brackish wastewater with different salinity content. The relation between temperature variations of brackish water, glass, and base of solar desalination pond with condensation rate are discussed. Results indicate when brackish water temperature is increasing; the average daily production of solar desalination pond is increased considerably. Results of the mathematical modeling show good agreement with... 

In common solar stills, a portion of the produced vapor undesirably condenses on the sidewalls and runs down to be mixed with saline water in the basin. This results in lower distillate output of the system. The aim of this study was to improve the condensation process of a solar still without complicating its structure to collect the water condensed on sidewalls. The proposed solar still was made of two containers nested one inside the other such that the smaller container, containing saline water, fitted easily into the larger container. There was a thin gap between the two in which condensed liquid on sidewalls, ran down and was collected from the bottom of the larger container. The... 

Recently, microalgae has received a high attention for application in bioelectrochemical systems due to its potential to be used for oxygen generation and biodiesel production. In this study performance of algal biocathode in a microbial desalination cell (MDC) was evaluated against air cathode and biocathode microbial fuel cell (MFC). Effluent of a dairy wastewater treatment plant with COD of 1000 mg l-1 was utilized as substrate in the anode and the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris was inoculated in the cathode using a synthetic culture media. Experiments were conducted using two different saline water concentrations including 15 g l-1 (MDC-1) and 35 g l-1 (MDC-2) in a desalination cell and... 

The current study investigates the effect of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) addition on morphology and antifouling properties of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) asymmetric flat ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. The membranes are prepared via phase inversion method induced by immersion precipitation at different PVC/PAN blending ratio up to 40 wt% PAN. Also, membranes with blending ratio of PVC/ PAN:70/30, which showed the highest water flux and flux recovery ratio, were used for membrane preparation with 4 wt% of Polyethylene glycol (PEG) addition in four different molecular weight, 600 Da, 1,000 Da, 6,000 Da and 20,000 Da, which was used as pore former and hydrophilic polymeric additive. The performance... 

A solar natural vacuum desalination system was experimentally investigated. Using a barometric water column and creating an equilibrium with atmospheric pressure and gravity, vacuum conditions were maintained inside the evaporation chamber throughout the day, which led to the beginning of evaporation at lower temperatures and as a result, lower energy consumption compared to conventional methods. Solar evacuated tubes were used to more efficiently absorb solar radiation and raise the temperature of saline water. In addition, at the system startup, a vacuum pump was utilized to fill the water column and create vacuum conditions. Then, the existing vacuum in the system was maintained naturally... 

Food, energy, and water (FEW) resources have high interconnection and interdependencies as each resource can be affected by the other two. Thus, the Nexus approach is introduced and implemented to manage FEW. This chapter discusses each sector of FEW: availability, production, consumption, interaction, and interconnection between them, and finally suggests some action to improve the operation of the Nexus. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020  

The use of solar-powered reverse osmosis desalination systems is a sustainable and environmentally friendly solution in the desalination industry. However, there are some substantial technical and economic challenges due to the intermittency and fluctuation of solar energy. Recent technological improvement and feed-in tariff policies enable these systems to be competitive with conventional grid-connected reverse osmosis systems. In this paper, a feasibility study of the integration of solar panels with the grid to power small-scale reverse osmosis systems (namely up to 2000 m3/day) is conducted in Iran, as a country with a low price of electricity. For this purpose, a city located on the... 

Over recent years, the concept of waste heat recovery from the generators of wind turbines for driving a thermal-driven desalination system was introduced, and its advantages were highlighted. However, any selection of a bottoming thermal-driven desalination system among different existing technologies should be taken under consideration before making an ultimate recommendation. Unfortunately, no comprehensive comparison is available in the literature to compare the performance as well as the cost aspects of using the waste thermal energy of the generator of a wind turbine for desalinating seawater, comparing them with those of a layout where the power of the wind turbine is directly... 

In this research, the design of a solar reverse osmosis desalination plant was investigated by integrating various components using TRNSYS and ROSA software. To this goal, a two-stage reverse osmosis system with 50% recovery in the city of Chabahar was modeled. The calculations were performed in three different case studies, i.e., a photovoltaic power plant, a solar collector power plant with Organic Rankine Cycles, and a photovoltaic thermal power plant with Organic Rankine Cycles, with the reverse osmosis desalination plant being a novel investigation. Water production and electrical energy generation of each case study were evaluated both on a daily and yearly bases. The simulation...