Review on Spray-Assisted Solar Desalination: Concept, Performance and Modeling

This article presents a review on performance, thermal modeling and numerical modeling of spray-assisted solar desalination systems (SLTD). Spray assisted has the benefits of higher rates of heat and mass transfer, the ability to work at moderately low-temperature differences, ease of system design, less scaling and fouling issues, and lower initial cost than conventional thermal desalination. Thermal models are handy tools to expect the performance of well-designed SLTD before its fabrication and saves cost and time. Software applications play a crucial role in developing and analyzing the mathematical model and assessing the performance of SLTD. CFD simulation is useful in the analysis as it can show the precise distribution of temperature inside the evaporation tower. It is used to model and analyze the evaporation process of brine spray and a powerful tool for guiding the selection of operating conditions. Highest productivity obtained as 9 L/m² per day, and the maximum daily efficiency was 87%. Maximum value of the performance ratio reached 1.42 in the double stage constant heat source spray assisted desalination system. Steam jet ejector contributes over 40% of the total energy degradation. Rate of production and performance ratio increases with the increase in top brine temperature. Productivity of SLTD was more compared to conventional distillation systems due to higher rate of heat transfer and a higher rate of evaporation.