As the world’s population grows, the number of people facing water scarcity issues is expected to rise, with some estimates pitting the number of people experiencing water shortages to be at 60 percent by 2025. With 97 percent of the world’s water in oceans, seawater desalination represents a major opportunity for alleviating water stress across the globe.
Today, more than 20,000 desalination plants are operating in 150 countries, according to data from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The two main types of desalination processes are membrane (reverse osmosis, or RO) and thermal, which includes multi-effect distillation (MED) and multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) technology.
In an effort to generate both energy and water using a renewable energy process, Professor Wang and a team from KAUST have developed a system that captures heat shed by solar panels to be used to generate clean drinking water. “Among all renewable energy, solar energy has the highest natural abundance and lowest geographical limitation,” Wang said. “Solar power generation by photovoltaics (PV) occupies the central piece in the global fight against climate change. PV panels, however, suffer from an over-heating problem during daytime, especially in arid and semi-arid regions where solar irradiation is high. In summer, PV panels in these areas can be 104° F hotter than the ambient air. Therefore, there is a huge amount of heat produced and wasted on PV panels daily.”
Source: Water World
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