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<p>The availability of fresh water is pivotal to improving man’s living standards. However, this important resource is continually being depleted by anthropogenic activities such as population growth, industrialization and its attendant global warming. The increase in earth’s temperature exacerbates the growing scarcity, hence the emphasis on saltwater desalination using clean and renewable energy sources to meet the rising freshwater demands. Thus, this article reviews the performances of direct and indirect solar desalination systems with a particular interest in multi-stage solar desalination technologies (MSDTs). Though there are works on single-stage solar desalination units, their production rates are lower than those of their multi-stage configurations. The MSDT leverages the latent heat recovery inside the system to boost its freshwater production; however, this adds to the overall cost of the unit. The cost&#xa0;per liter (CPL) of desalinating saltwater is strongly impacted by the daily freshwater yield and could be optimized by scaling up the plant capacity. Howbeit, such modification introduces complexity with increased capital cost, thus the selection of a given configuration should be preceded by a detailed cost–benefit analysis. This work has made a comprehensive attempt to cover the developments, thermal analyses, operations, and limitations of MSDTs. The economic viability of these technologies, considering the impact of carbon mitigation, is extensively discussed. Furthermore, the findings from previous works, considering their features, improvements, and drawbacks have been presented with detailed discussions and conclusions. The identified drawbacks serve as research areas to address the issue of freshwater scarcity plaguing our society.</p>

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Solar-thermal desalination in multi-stage units: a detailed review

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年3月1日

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  • Ernest C. Nwosu,
  • Chibuike Ononogbo,
  • Godswill N. Nwaji,
  • Nnamdi V. Ogueke,
  • Emmanuel E. Anyanwu

摘要

The availability of fresh water is pivotal to improving man’s living standards. However, this important resource is continually being depleted by anthropogenic activities such as population growth, industrialization and its attendant global warming. The increase in earth’s temperature exacerbates the growing scarcity, hence the emphasis on saltwater desalination using clean and renewable energy sources to meet the rising freshwater demands. Thus, this article reviews the performances of direct and indirect solar desalination systems with a particular interest in multi-stage solar desalination technologies (MSDTs). Though there are works on single-stage solar desalination units, their production rates are lower than those of their multi-stage configurations. The MSDT leverages the latent heat recovery inside the system to boost its freshwater production; however, this adds to the overall cost of the unit. The cost per liter (CPL) of desalinating saltwater is strongly impacted by the daily freshwater yield and could be optimized by scaling up the plant capacity. Howbeit, such modification introduces complexity with increased capital cost, thus the selection of a given configuration should be preceded by a detailed cost–benefit analysis. This work has made a comprehensive attempt to cover the developments, thermal analyses, operations, and limitations of MSDTs. The economic viability of these technologies, considering the impact of carbon mitigation, is extensively discussed. Furthermore, the findings from previous works, considering their features, improvements, and drawbacks have been presented with detailed discussions and conclusions. The identified drawbacks serve as research areas to address the issue of freshwater scarcity plaguing our society.