Experimental investigation of a bubbling humidification-dehumidification desalination system directly heated by cylindrical Fresnel lens solar concentrator

A bubbling humidification-dehumidification (HDH) desalination system directly heated by concentrated sunlight is presented in this work. Sending directly the concentrated sunlight into bubbling humidification chamber can save the circulation pipeline and solar receivers, and reduce the heat loss of the pipeline which simplifies the device's structure and adds its operation reliability. The HDH system consists of a Fresnel lens solar concentrator, a bubbling humidification chamber and a bubbling dehumidification chamber. The operating principle and the structural design of the bubbling chambers are explained. A cylindrical Fresnel lens is used to focus sunlight into the humidification chamber to directly heat the seawater. With air coming out from the perforated wall of the immerged pipe, bubbles will generate underwater to obtain sufficient heat and moisture transfer. Experimental tests under different conditions were carried out to verify the design and study the performance characteristics. The results that the maximum freshwater productivity is about 1.24L/h/m² when the maximum solar irradiance is 980 W/m². The accumulated yield can reach 5.61L/d/m² with an average thermal efficiency about 69% for sunny weather conditions in October in Beijing. Besides, the average thermal efficiency is about 71% under steady-state condition. Compared to some published works, the proposed bubbling HDH desalination system has relatively higher freshwater productivity owing to its effective heat and moisture transfer enhancement by direct solar heating and bubbling. The economic analysis showed that the price of the produced water for the system is about 0.027$/L.