Water plays an important role in all our day to day activities and its consumption is increasing day by day because of increased living standards of mankind. Some regions of the globe are under severe stress due to water scarcity and pollution. The fresh water needs of mankind can be only satisfied if saline water which is available in plenty is converted to potable water by desalination. Desalination industry has shown increased threats of CO2 emissions and severe environmental impacts. Desalination industry can be made sustainable if they are integrated with renewable energy and if proper brine disposal methods are followed. In this review different desalination units integrated with renewable energy with special emphasis given to solar energy is discussed. The problems associated with desalination units and their remedies have been presented. Apart from this some novel methods of desalination process has also been explained. This review will allow the researchers to choose appropriate desalination technology for further development.

A review of solar energy driven desalination technologies

https://northumbria-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/document/271009

Energy-water-environment nexus underpinning future desalination sustainability

Recent progress in the use of renewable energy sources to power water desalination plants

With over 30% global land coverage, the forest is one of nature's most generous gifts to human beings, providing shelters and materials for all living beings. Apart from being sustainable, renewable, and biodegradable, wood and its derivative materials are also extremely fascinating from a materials aspect, with numerous advantages including porous and hierarchical structure, excellent mechanical performance, and versatile chemistry. Here, strategies for designing novel wood-based materials via advanced nanotechnologies are summarized, including both the controllable bottom-up assembly from the highly crystalline nanocellulose building block and the more efficient top-down approaches directly from wood. Beyond material design, recent advances regarding the sustainable applications of these novel wood-based materials are also presented, focusing on areas that are traditionally dominated by man-made nonrenewable materials such as plastic, glass, and metals, as well as more advanced applications in the areas of energy storage, wastewater treatment and solar-steam-assisted desalination. With all recent progress pertaining to materials' design and sustainable applications presented, a vision for the future engineering of wood-based materials to promote continuous and healthy progress toward true sustainability is outlined.

Wood-Based Nanotechnologies toward Sustainability.

All over the world, access to potable water to the people are narrowing down day by day. Most of the human diseases are due to polluted or non-purified water resources. Even today, under developed countries and developing countries face a huge water scarcity because of unplanned mechanism and pollution created by manmade activities. Water purification without affecting the ecosystem is the need of the hour. In this context, many conventional and non-conventional techniques have been developed for purification of saline water. Among these, solar distillation proves to be both economical and eco-friendly technique particularly in rural areas. Many active distillation systems have been developed to overcome the problem of lower distillate output in passive solar stills. This article provides a detailed review of different studies on active solar distillation system over the years. Thermal modelling was done for various types of active single slope solar distillation system. This review would also throw light on the scope for further research and recommendations in active solar distillation system.

Active solar distillation—A detailed review

Opportunities for solar water desalination worldwide: Review

Water is one of the earth's most abundant resources, covering about three-quarters of the planet's surface. Yet, there is an acute shortage of potable water in many countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East region. The reason for this apparent contradiction is, of course, that 97.5% of the earth's water is salt water in the oceans and only 2.5% is fresh water in ground water, lakes and rivers and this supplies most human and animal needs. Tackling the water scarcity problem must involve better and more economic ways of desalinating seawater. This article presents a comprehensive review of water desalination systems, whether operated by conventional energy or renewable energy, to convert saline water into fresh water. These systems comprise the thermal phase change and membrane processes, in addition to some alternative processes. Thermal processes include the multistage flash, multiple effects boiling and vapour compression, cogeneration and solar distillation, while the membrane processes include reverse osmosis, electrodialysis and membrane distillation. It also covers the integration into desalination systems of potential renewable energy resources, including solar energy, wind and geothermal energy. Such systems are increasingly attractive in the Middle East and Africa, areas suffering from shortages of fresh water but where solar energy is plentiful and where operational and maintenance costs are low. The advantages and disadvantages, including the economic and environmental aspects, of these desalination systems are presented.

/pdf/water-desalination-technologies-utilizing-conventional-and-3kyqjwosnp.pdf

Water desalination technologies utilizing conventional and renewable energy sources

Determination of rational design parameters of a multi-stage solar water desalination still using transient mathematical modelling

There is an acute scarcity of potable water in many parts of the world, and especially in the Middle East region. Most of developing countries around the world endeavor to make a balance between declining fresh water supplies and the rapid demands of a rising population. Economic analysis is an essential factor influencing the decision-making in the adoption of desalination technology. This paper presents an economic and comparative evaluation study for a small scale solar powered water desalination system. An economic model has been developed and used to calculate the economic parameters. The results showed that the estimated cost of potable water produced by a solar desalination compact unit was 11 US$/m3 and this could be reduced to 8 US$/m3 when an evacuated tube solar collector with an area of 3 m2 was used. It has been also proved that the cost of fresh water decreased with increasing the life-time of desalination plant. Development of small scale desalination plants based on the concept of humidification and dehumidification in a compact unit coupled with solar collectors could be considered a unique solution to water shortages in remote and semi-arid areas.

Economic study for an affordable small scale solar water desalination system in remote and semi-arid region

http://www.sciencedev.net/docs/paper_1_-mahmoud_shatat.pdf

Mahmoud Shatat

Papers

Opportunities for solar water desalination worldwide: Review

Water desalination technologies utilizing conventional and renewable energy sources

Determination of rational design parameters of a multi-stage solar water desalination still using transient mathematical modelling

Economic study for an affordable small scale solar water desalination system in remote and semi-arid region

Theoretical simulation of small scale psychometric solar water desalination system in semi-arid region