International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN (Online): 2319-7064 Index Copernicus Value (2015): 78.96 | Impact Factor (2015): 6.391 Volume 6 Issue 4, April 2017 www.ijsr.net Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY A Review on Solar Desalination System Swaraj V. Sakharkar 1 , Amol D. Pitale 2 1 Student, M.Tech. Heat Power Engineering, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, India- 440016 2 Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Department, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, India- 440016 Abstract: Desalination is a most promising method to produce potable water. Due to unavailability of fresh water & depletion of fossil fuels, human being move towards renewable sources of energy. In addition, the pollutants released from burning fossil fuels may harm the environment as well as human being. Therefore, instead of conventional desalination system, which uses fuel as a thermal source, solar desalination is the best way to generate potable water. Researchers works on the commercial use of solar desalination system due to limitations of unavailability of solar radiation consistently. Desalination system runs on solar may generate more potable water at low cost. This review presents the various types of solar desalination. Keywords: Desalination, potable water, solar collector, solar pond, photovoltaic (PV) 1. Introduction The trend of using renewable energy sources in power generation plants carried out in the world for reducing greenhouse gases emission from fossil fuels. Tidal wave, geothermal power, biomass, wind and solar are renewable energy sources which are presently used for power generation. It is extremely expected that quick development of renewable energy sources will result cheaper worth of energy value within the close to future. Presently world energy sources are highly dependent on fossil fuel such as coal, natural gas and oil that contribute 59.26% as compared to other sources. Other sources are nuclear which contribute 1.95%, renewable energy source contribute 12.91% of overall energy sources. The highest contributor of renewable energy sources as shown in figure 1a is hydropower, which contribute 16.52%. Figure 1: Scenario of Energy Sources in World The most necessary component in life on globe for development is water. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least one billion people unable to get clean and fresh water, and about 41% of Earth’s population live in the semi-drought areas, and this population may rise up to 3.5 billion by the year 2025[1,2]. India receives about 100-125 cm of rain per annum, which is unevenly distributed. Due to increase in population and continuously change in climate leads to rise in demand of fresh water. One solution to these problems is desalination which is known to remove excess salt and minerals from sea water. Desalination is carried out by different types of processes i.e. multi-stage flash, multi-effect and membrane based on reverse osmosis desalination which is now using commercially[2]. Following figure shows the operation of desalination cycle which is divided into different parts as shown in figure 2. Figure 2: Classification of desalination 2. Solar-Based Driven System 2.1 Solar driven MSF MSF is the second most popular desalination technique after RO system which is used where large amount of water has to convert into potable water. It requires power from external source which consume more energy as well as require large thermal energy. Fig shows the multi stage flash system with power source and solar collector. Salt water is fed through condensing tubes which is preheated as well as condenses the steam which is flashed in the flash chamber. The brine which is heated by renewable source of energy enters the flash chamber. Some part is flash due to higher temperature of brine than temperature at vacuum pressure of flash chamber. Due to the danger of scaling the top saline solution temperature is constrained to around 110 0 C[3]. Paper ID: ART20172071 11