Experimental investigation and cost assessment of the salt production by solar assisted evaporation of saturated brine

The technical feasibility and economy of solar heat collection-forced evaporation process are the keys to its practicality,especially its application in strong brine treatment.The operation cost of applying solar collection in salt manufacturing through depth evaporation of brine has been studied.For Na^＋,K^＋,Mg^2＋//Cl^-,SO4^2--H2O salt–water system,most of the Na Cl and all of the Carnallite were separated.The operation cost reached the optimum when the heat collection and evaporation were controlled at 75 and 55℃,respectively.When the solar radiation amount was 19557 kJ·m^-2·d^-1,the solar collector area for producing Carnallite was about 34.27 m^2·（t salt）^-1,and the operation cost was 13 USD·（t salt）^-1.The energy consumption of salt manufacturing is at least 25%higher than that of natural evaporation.Regarding the economy,the solar assisted salt manufacturing process is recommended to be performed at a production scale of more than 20 tons per day.

The Experimental Research on a New Multiple Curved Surfaces Compound Focus Solar Trough Collector

A new trough imaging solar collector with multiple compounding curved surfaces has been designed. Its working principle and design parameters have been introduced. The experimental curve of temperature rising of the system with time under the real weather has been given. The system efficiency and the relation between efficiency and temperature have been calculated. The test result shows that the system has the advantages of high collecting temperature and not obvious variety of the collecting efficiency with the operating temperature. Therefore, this collector is a quite ideal medium temperature solar collector.

Performance analyses of a novel finned parabolic trough receiver with inner tube for solar cascade heat collection

Designing highly-efficient parabolic trough receiver(PTR)contributes to promoting solar thermal utilization and alleviating energy crisis and environmental problems.A novel finned PTR with inner tube(FPTR-IT),which can provide different grades of thermal energy with two heat transfer fluids(oil and water),is designed to improve thermal efficiency.In this FPTR-IT,an inner tube and straight fins are employed to respectively lessen heat loss at upper and lower parts of the absorber.Based on the design,a numerical model is developed to investigate its performance.Comparisons with other PTRs indicate that the FPTR-IT can combine the advantages of PTR with inner tube and finned PTR and obtain the best performance.Moreover,performance evaluation under broad ranges of direct normal irradiances(300–1000 W/m^(2)),flow rates(50–250 L/min)and inlet temperatures(400–600 K)of oil as well as flow rates(3.6–10 L/min)and inlet temperatures(298.15–318.15 K)of water is investigated.Compared with conventional PTR,heat loss is reduced by 20.7%–63.2%and total efficiency is improved by 0.03%–4.27%.Furthermore,the proportions of heat gains for water and oil are located in 8.3%–73.9%and-12.0%–64.3%,while their temperature gains are located in 11.6–37.9 K and-1.2–19.6 K,respectively.Thus,the proposed FPTR-IT may have a promising application prospect in remote arid areas or islands to provide different grades of heat for electricity and freshwater production.

Experimental study of a micro-scale solar organic Rankine cycle system based on compound cylindrical Fresnel lens solar concentrator

In the present study, a micro-scale solar organic Rankine cycle power generation system was developed. The system comprises of a solar collection system based on compound cylindrical Fresnel lens concentrator and an organic Rankine cycle power generation system integrated with a scroll expander. YD320 and R245 fa were used as the heat transfer fluid and the working fluid, respectively. The effects of the evaporation pressure, the degree of superheat, and the mass flow rate of the working fluid were analyzed to evaluate the solar collection efficiency, the electric power output, the thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency of the system. The results illustrate that both the increasing evaporation pressure and decreasing superheat degree have positive impacts on solar collection efficiency. The electric power increases as the evaporation pressure increases, while the thermal efficiency and the exergy efficiency decrease. However, the system overall efficiency decreases slowly due to the increase of solar collection efficiency. The electric power increases with the increment of the working fluid mass flow rate. The increasing mass flow rate has no visible impact on the thermal and exergy efficiencies of organic Rankine cycle subsystem, whereas a slightly increase of the thermal and exergy efficiencies of the integrated system. The electric power decreases with the increase of the superheat degree, whereas the thermal and the exergy efficiencies of the system increase. The system works more suitably with a higher degree of superheat for the small mass flow rate condition.