Experimental Investigation of a Phase-ChangeMaterial’s Stabilizing Role in a Pilot of Smart Salt-Gradient Solar Ponds

Faced with the world’s environmental and energy-related challenges,researchers are turning to innovative,sustainable and intelligent solutions to produce,store,and distribute energy.This work explores the trend of using a smart sensor to monitor the stability and efficiency of a salt-gradient solar pond.Several studies have been conducted to improve the thermal efficiency of salt-gradient solar ponds by introducing other materials.This study investigates the thermal and salinity behaviors of a pilot of smart salt-gradient solar ponds with(SGSP)and without(SGSPP)paraffin wax(PW)as a phase-change material(PCM).Temperature and salinity were measured experimentally using a smart sensor,with the measurements being used to investigate the stabilizing effects of placing the PCM in the solar pond’s lower convective zone.The experimental results show that the pond with the PCM(SGSPP)achieved greater thermal and salinity stability,with there being a lesser temperature and salinity gradient between the different layers when compared to a solar pond without thePCM(SGSP).The use of the PCM,therefore,helped control the maximum and minimum temperature of the pond’s storage zone.The UCZ has been found to operate approximately 4 degrees above the average ambient temperature of the day in the SGSPP and 7 degrees in SGSP.Moreover,an unstable situation is generated after 5 days from starting the operation and at 1.9 m from the bottom,and certain points have the tendency to be neutral from the upper depths in 1,3 m of the bottom.

Effect of Non-Convective Zone Thickness on Thermal Efficiency of Salt Gradient Solar Ponds

An improved radiation transmission and thermal efficiency model for solar ponds has been proposed based on both the Hull Model and Wang/Seyed-Yagoobi Model in this paper.The new model is more accurate to actual measured conditions because multiple reflections and turbidity effects are included.Absorption penetration,thermal conductivity loss and thermal efficiency under different Non-Convective Zone thicknesses are numerically analyzed and thoroughly discussed.The results show thatΔT/I0 plays a critical role for the thermal efficiency of solar pond.Furthermore,it is found through calculation that there is an optimum thickness of the Non-Convective Zone.When the Non-Convective Zone thickness is less than this critical threshold,both temperature and thermal efficiency are decreased with increasing turbidity.However,when the Non-Convective Zone thickness is greater than this critical threshold,the increasing turbidity within a certain range will be beneficial to improve the thermal efficiency of solar pond.In addition,optimum Non-Convective Zone thickness is also related to the temperature,turbidity,salinity variation and bottom reflectivity.

Lithium Extraction from Carbonate-type Saline Lake by Utilizing of Geothermal Solar Pond in Tibet

1 Introduction The geothermal solar pond is a kind of special solar pond.It is different from traditional solar pond,which high temperature geothermal water can be used to heat brine.When the salt in the brine reaches saturation temperature,it precipitate out and is separated from the brine.Compared with solar pond,the geothermal solar pond does not rely entirely on solar radiation as a heat

Numerical Analysis of the Influence of Buoyancy Ratio and Dufour Parameter on Thermosolutal Convection in a Square Salt Gradient Solar Pond

Revise the abstract as follows:This work aims to investigate numerically the influence of the buoyancy ratio and the Dufour parameter on thermosolutal convection in a square Salt Gradient Solar Pond(SGSP).The absorption of solar radiation by the saline water,the heat losses and the wind effects via the SGSP free surface are considered.The mathematical model is based on the Navier-Stokes equations used in synergy with the thermal energy equation.These equations are solved using the finite volume method and the Gauss algorithm.Velocity-pressure coupling is implemented through the SIMPLE algorithm.Simulations of the SGSP are performed for three values of buoyancy ratio(N=1,2 and 10),three values of Dufour parameter(Df?0,0.2 and 0.8)and some sample meteorological data(Tangier,Morocco).Results show that the highest dimensionless temperature of the storage zone is found for N=10.In the same zone and for the same value of N,the dimensionless salt concentration decreases very slightly versus time(unlike for N=1 or 2).Moreover,increasing Df from 0 to 0.8 causes a decrease in the dimensionless temperature of the SGSP storage zone and this decrease is more pronounced for N=1 and N=2.

The Effect of a Liquid Cover on the Thermal Performance of a Salinity Gradient Solar Pond:An Experimental Study

SalinityGradient Solar Ponds(SGSPs)offer the potential to capture and store solar energy for use in a range of domestic and industrial activities in regions with high solar insolation.However,the evaporation of water from these ponds is a significant problem that must be overcome for them to be deployed successfully.Thus,two ponds were constructed in the city of Nasiriya,Iraq.The two ponds were cylindrical with a diameter of 1.4 m and a total depth of 1.4 m.The water body in the two ponds was constructed with layer depths of 0.5,0.75 and 0.1 m for the lower convective zone(LCZ),non-convective zone(NCZ)and the upper convective zone(UCZ)respectively.One of the two ponds was covered with a thin liquid paraffin layer(0.5 cm)to eliminate evaporation from the surface of the UCZ.The behavior of the standard SGSP and that of the covered pond with evaporation suppressed can be straightforwardly compared.The experimental units were run for six months from 1st of February to 31st of July 2019.It was shown in the first instance that by covering the pond with a thin layer of paraffin,that evaporation could be suppressed.The results showed that for the conventional SGSP,the temperature of the LCZ reached a maximum of ca.76℃ while in the covered pond the temperature of the LCZ was consistently lower than that in the uncovered pond by approximately 5-6℃.The results also indicated that the temperature of the UCZ in the covered pond was higher than that in the uncovered pond by about 10℃ in the second half of the study period.However,it was noted that on rainy days the paraffin layer was swept away from the surface;and this could hinder the implementation of thin liquid cover in the large SGSP.

Halobacterium Identification in Saltworks of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain)

This work analyzes bacterial communities present in evaporation ponds of solar salterns of Gran Canaria and reveals specific organisms through molecular techniques.Solar salterns are protected areas in Canary Islands where salt is produced from sea water by solarand windpowered evaporation.Salt was an important product for ancient islanders who used it for a broad field of purposes,but also has a great importance in recent time for its implications in the island economy.Based on amplifications with specific primers for 16S ribosomal DNA(16S rDNA)and subsequent nested-PCR approaches,different amplicons were obtained,and analyzed in silico.A taxonomic classification was carried out through phylogenetic trees.Results revealed different bacteria according to the evaporation grade of crystallizer ponds in saline works.It is worthstanding the presence of the genus Halobacterium in all crystallizer ponds.This opens an interesting framework for further studies and continuative molecular characterization approaches of bacterial communities in solar salterns of Gran Canaria.

Numerical Simulation of Double-diffusive Dynamical Model of a Solar Pond Considering the Effect of Turbidity and Wind

A solar pond, typical double-diffusive system, is a stable heat source that can collect and store the solar energy. When the thermal stable condition is not satisfied at the interface, the upper and lower convective zone （UCZ and LCZ） will erode the middle non-convective zone （NCZ）, resulting in a drop or even a collapse of the thermal performance of solar pond. Wind strongly affects the erosion of NCZ from the entrainment of UCZ. The double-diffusion of heat and salt plays an important role in the erosion of NCZ from the entrainment of the lower-convective zone （LCZ）. The turbidity of saline water in the pond not only could lower the thermal performance of solar pond, but have effect on the entrainment mechanism. In this paper, based on the double-diffusive model along with the wind-driven turbulent entrainment model, the effects of turbidity and external wind etc. on the thermal performance of solar pond and the entrainment mechanism are analyzed with the numerical simulation.

Two-dimensional Modeling of a Salt-gradient Solar Pond with Wall Shading Effect and Thermo-physical Properties Dependent on Temperature and Concentration

In this paper,the behavior of a salt-gradient solar pond with the square cross-section has been studied experimentally and numerically.A small-scale solar pond were designed and built to provide quantitative data.A two-dimensional,transient heat and mass transfer model has been solved numerically by using finite-control-volume method.In this study,all the thermo-physical properties are variable as the function of temperature and salt concentration.Numerical results as obtained for the experimental pond have been satisfactorily compared and validated against measured data.Furthermore,the wall shading effect has been elaborated to improve the agreement between two sets of results.The temperature of the storage zone is predicted well by the model.It also can be observed that the initial concentration profile is preserved with time.The stability of the pond in time has been investigated in order to distinguish the critical zones.Finally,the application of an energy analysis gives an efficiency of about 12%for the pond.

Simulation studies on metastable phase equilibria in the aqueous ternary systems (NaCl-MgCl_(2)-H_(2)O) and (KCl-MgCl_(2)-H_(2)O) at 308.15K

The solubilities and densities of the aqueous metastable ternary systems(NaCl-MgCl_(2)-H_(2)O)and(KCl-MgCl_(2)-H_(2)O)at 308.15 K were determined by the isothermal evaporation method.On the basis of the experimental results,the phase diagrams for those systems were plotted.It was found that the former system belongs to the hydrate-I type with one invariant point of(NaCl+MgCl_(2)·6H_(2)O),two univariant curves,and two crystal-lization regions corresponding to halite(NaCl)and bischofite(MgCl_(2)·6H_(2)O);and the latter system belongs to the type of incongruent-double salts with two invariant points of(KCl+KCl·MgCl_(2)·6H_(2)O)and(MgCl_(2)·6H_(2)O+KCl·MgCl_(2)·6H_(2)O),three univariant curves,and three crystallization regions corresponding to potassium chlor-ide(KCl),carnallite(KCl·MgCl_(2)·6H_(2)O)and bischofite(MgCl_(2)·6H_(2).No solid solutions were found in both systems.