Solar Desalination for the 21St Century
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Solar Desalination for the 21st Century NATO Security through Science Series This Series presents the results of scientific meetings supported under the NATO Programme for Security through Science (STS). Meetings supported by the NATO STS Programme are in security-related priority areas of Defence Against Terrorism or Countering Other Threats to Security. The types of meeting supported are generally Advanced’’ Study Institutes’’ and Advanced’’ Research Workshops’’ . The NATO STS Series collects together the results of these meetings. The meetings are co-organized by scientists from NATO countries and scientists from NATO’ s Partner’’ ’’ or Mediterranean’’ Dialogue’’ countries. The observations and recommendations made at the meetings, as well as the contents of the volumes in the Series, reflect those of participants and contributors only; they should not necessarily be regarded as reflecting NATO views or policy. Advanced Study Institutes (ASI) are high-level tutorial courses to convey the latest developments in a subject to an advanced-level audience Advanced Research Workshops (ARW) are expert meetings where an intense but informal exchange of views at the frontiers of a subject aims at identifying directions for future action Following a transformation of the programme in 2004 the Series has been re-named and re-organised. Recent volumes on topics not related to security, which result from meetings supported under the programme earlier, may be found in the NATO Science Series. The Series is published by IOS Press, Amsterdam, and Springer, Dordrecht, in conjunction with the NATO Public Diplomacy Division. Sub-Series A. Chemistry and Biology Springer B. Physics and Biophysics Springer C. Environmental Security Springer D. Information and Communication Security IOS Press E. Human and Societal Dynamics IOS Press http://www.nato.int/science http://www.springer.com http://www.iospress.nl Series C: Environmental Security Solar Desalination for the 21st Century A Review of Modern Technologies and Researches on Desalination Coupled to Renewable Energies edited by Lucio Rizzuti Università di Palermo, Italy Hisham M. Ettouney University of Giza, Egypt and Andrea Cipollina Università di Palermo, Italy Published in cooperation with NATO Public Diplomacy Division Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Solar Desalination for the 21st Century Hammamet, Tunisia 23--25 February 2006 A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN-10 1-4020-5507-2 (PB) ISBN-13 978-1-4020-5507-2 (PB) ISBN-10 1-4020-5506-4 (HB) ISBN-13 978-1-4020-5506-5 (HB) ISBN-10 1-4020-5508-0 (e-book) ISBN-13 978-1-4020-5508-9 (e-book) Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springer.com Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2007 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ix Scientific program of the NATO ARW xiii Opening xvii Conclusions xix List and Affiliation of the ARW Participants xxiii Preface xxvii Acknowledgments xxix 1. Solar Desalination: a challenge for sustainable fresh water in the 21st Century (Ettouney H., Rizzuti L.) 1 2. Development of solar desalination system concepts for irrigation in arid areas conditions (Chaibi M.T., Bourouni K.) 19 3. Techno-Economic evaluation of a solar powered water desalination plant (Fiorenza G., Sharma V.K., Braccio G.) 33 4. Dynamic modeling tools for solar powered desalination processes during transient operations (Bogle D.L., Cipollina A., Micale G.) 43 5. A methodology to predict operation of a solar powered desalin-ation unit (Ben Bacha H., Maalej A.Y., Ben Dhia H.) 69 6. Optimizing coupling small desalination units to solar collectors: a case study (Bourouni K., Chaibi M.T.) 83 7. Using a simulation program to optimize the operating conditions of a solar desalination plant for maximum production (El-Nashar A.M.) 93 8. De-central water and power supply integrating renewable energy – Technical and economic performance prediction (Rheinländer J.) 111 v vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 9. Moroccan potentialities of renewable energy sources for water desalination (Zejli D., Elmidaoui A.) 127 10. Solar energy utilisation opportunities in Bulgaria (Gramaticov P.) 139 11. Solar water desalination in the Aral Sea Region (Khaydarov R.A., Khaydarov R.R., Gapurova O., Yuldashev B.) 153 12. Status and prospects for solar desalination in the MENA region (Abu Arabi M.) 163 13. The potential of renewable energies in Sicily for water desalination applications (Beccali M., Sorce M., Galletto J.) 179 14. The PSA experience on solar desalination: Technology development and research activities (Blanco J., Alarcón D.) 195 15. A review of desalination by solar stills (Aybar H.S.) 207 16. Solar thermal desalination using the Multiple Effect Humidification (MEH)-method (Mü ller-Holst H.) 215 17. Beyond pilot projects: the feasibility of immediate technology transfer from tried and tested maritime and offshore reverse osmosis systems to stationary solar and wind powered desalination solutions (Thiesen S.) 227 18. Solar Stills: 10 years of practical experience in commercializing solar stills worldwide (Kopsch O.) 239 19. Solar driven desalination systems based on membrane distillation (Rommel M., Koschikowski J., Wieghaus M.) 247 20. Potential application of solar heat collectors to an EasyMED® thermal desalination unit (Renaudin V., Alonso D., Kafi F., Hornut J.-M.) 259 21. Membrane Desalination driven by solar energy (Banat F., Qiblawey H.) 271 22. Small autonomous RO desalination systems powered by renewable energies. Technological advances and economics (Papadakis G., Mohamed E.SH., Manolakos D.) 293 23. Desalination with wind and wave power (De Almeida A.T., Moura P.S.) 305 TABLE OF CONTENTS vii 24. Desalted water from a hybrid RO/MSF plant with RDF combustion: modelling and economics (Fois E., Lallai A., Mura G.) 327 25. Autonomous desalination units based on renewable energy systems - a review of representative installations worldwide (Papapetrou M., Epp C., Tzen E.) 343 26. Assessment of most promising developments in solar desalination (Garcia-Rodriguez L.) 355 Abbreviations 371 Author Index 373 Subject Index 375 INTRODUCTION The solar desalination workshop for the 21st century was sponsored by NATO program Security Through Science. In a great number of countries water scarcity, coupled with a significant growth in population especially in developing countries, poses the serious problem of supplying fresh water. The countries affected by water scarcity are found in the African, Asian, European and American continents, and also are on the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Severe drought usually generates a general malaise in populations which are already affected by a number of social and poverty problems, which often lead to significant and uncontrolled emigration towards richer countries, especially if one takes into account the increasing economic and lifestyle gap between north and south Mediterranean countries. Emigration could be contained if basic life needs were guaranteed to the population in their homelands, particularly potable water supply. Abundant solar energy combined with desalination could provide a sustainable source of potable water, but unfortunately, the optimum configuration for solar desalination that would provide inexpensive fresh water is difficult to reach. Further exhaustive research, field developments, and proper mobilization and coordination of funding, research and development is needed to achieve this goal. Notwithstanding the complexity of the water scarcity problem, in recent years the development of new technologies has given hope for a solution, suggesting many different ways of how seawater desalination could provide a population with the needed amount of fresh water to guarantee a normal lifestyle. Well proved technologies such as Multi Stage Flash or Reverse Osmosis desalination show how it is possible to produce fresh water from seawater (or from brackish water) at a cost between 0.5 and 1 Euro per cubic meter of produced water, hile ensuring the highest standard of water quality suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO). Numerous examples of plants are currently operating nowadays in many wareas of the world, i.e. U.S.A., European countries (Italy, Spain and Greece), the Middle East and North African countries. In recent years a growing technical and scientific community is dealing with the problem of optimizing current desalination processes and developing new ones. The most recent research topics have been focused on the consolidation and improvement of thermal desalination processes, the development of new and more efficient Reverse Osmosis plants and more recently the use of Renewable Energies to be coupled with the production of fresh water from the sea. The use of renewable energy for desalination purposes, in particular, has involved a number of research centers, ix x INTRODUCTION universities and governmental authorities, due to the potential it may have in the field. As a matter of fact a continuous increase of fossil fuels costs is inevitable in the world market, especially