Iranian Researcher Makes Solar Desalination System with Heat Pump
“Desalination by humidification-dehumidification method is one of the most practical small-scale desalination processes. This method has outstanding advantages like low operating temperature, the ability to use solar energy, simple structure and no need for skilled personnel,” said Mohammad Behshad Shafiyee, a professor of Sharif University of Technology and a PhD graduate in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan.
“At present, this method has been industrialized in the European countries and South Africa. On the other hand, with the increase in energy cost, the importance of its optimal use also increases. Today, in order to use energy optimally, the combination of different types of desalination systems with heat pumps has attracted the attention of many researchers,” he added.
Noting that heat pumps are suitable alternatives for heat recovery from various sources for industrial, commercial and domestic applications, Shafiyee said, “The purpose of this research is to experimentally study a new integrated system of desalination, humidification, dehumidification, and solar heat pump. Due to the importance of water in the economic development of Iran and its key role in production processes, it was necessary to conduct such a research.”
In a relevant development in March, Iranian researchers at the Tehran-based Niro Research Institute (NRI) had also achieved the know-how and the technology of desalinating salty wastewater of the power plants by of 72%.
A team of researchers in the field of environment department at NRI succeeded in desalinizing the salty effluent of a power plant by 72% using the microbial desalination cell (MDC).
A microbial desalination cell (MDC) is a biological electrochemical system that implements the use of electro-active bacteria to power desalination of water in situ, resourcing the natural anode and cathode gradient of the electro-active bacteria and thus creating an internal supercapacitor. It is a new and modern technology that can minimize energy consumption and increase fresh water production.
Morteza Jalali Lichaei, the Director of the NRI environmental research department and the xecutive director of the project, noted that water is one of the main needs of combined-cycle and heating power plants.
He explained that one of the effluents produced in these power plants and gas-fouled plants equipped with turbine inlet air cooling system is saline effluent, which is a wastewater stream containing a combination of dissolved salts, hardness ions, organic content, nutrients, or other metals. The effluent is mixed with other wastewaters or discharged in evaporation ponds after pH adjustment, the researcher added.
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