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DESALINATION
Desalination 134 (2001) 159-171
www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

ELSEVIER

Solar distillation with economies of scale, innovation and optimization

Richard L. Hummel
Chemical Engineering, University of Toronto, 200 College Street, Toronto, M5S 3E5, Canada Tel + 1 (416.) 928-2822; Fax + 1 (416) 978-2451; e-mail: richard hummel@utoronto, ca

Received 18 September 2000; accepted 2 October 2000

Abstract Solar distillation of seawater can be economical on a large scale, combining the advantages of free solar energy with cost effective design. To do this, we have designed a large scale, solar unit topped by covers at two levels, the top resists the wind, creating a quiet space for more traditional covers which trap the solar energy and condense water vapor. These lower covers would arch over a large pool of brine built in a shallow sandy bay. The solar energy would be converted to heat beneath the brine to distill water vapor condensed on the cover. Air would flow over a brine pool, collecting vapor. In some pools, the air would then be blown through inflated plastic under the brine where the heat released by condensation of vapor would be passed back into the brine pool to create more vaporization. This system, Distributed Multieffect Distillation (DMD), offers improvements over the traditional solar energy system because it reuses the heat of condensation and over the usual MSF, MED, and LTV systems, which also reuse the heat, became it has much lower construction costs. To update these early assumptions, using today's powerful low-cost computers, we can determine the economics and maximize the ability to compete against today's best systems by modeling and optimizing, design and operation. Small-scale experiments, for data such as heat transfer coefficients, are essential for valid modeling.
Keywords: Solar distillation; Dynamic optimization; Extended heat surface; Heat reuse

1. Introduction Can solar distillation of seawater be cost effective on a large scale? The Office of Saline Water thought so in the 1950's. Aider all solar energy is free. They failed. An unexpectedly low efficiency surprised them, but it was the capital costs that killed their hopes. O S W did not accept

blame for poor design, but claimed that solar energy was too dilute to support commercial water production. A "simple still", capable o f filling buckets with water is easy to design, but to be effective one capable o f filling a water main must be large, must justify all costs and must make good

Presented at the International Conference on Seawater Desalination Technologies on the Threshold of the New Millennium, Kuwait, 4-7 November 2000.

0011-9164/01/$- See front matter 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
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R.L. Hummel / Desalination 134 (2001) 159-171

use of heat in distilling seawater. These demands can be met. Costs can be cut and production increased in a system, which promises to compete in favorable locations. One of OSW's simple stills (Fig. 1), built in 1958 in Daytona Beach, Florida serves as a reference [ 1] for the problems we have overcome. It used standard rolls of mylar to form an arch over brine pools one meter wide. The transparent cover passes solar radiation to a black bottom where it generates heat. This heat can accumulate in the brine, heat the enclosed air and evaporate water from brine. Heated air circulates to the cover where water condenses and drains down as product. Note also the insulation beneath the pool, the seals between plastic and gutter and the waterproof bottom. Production depends on the fraction of the heat carried as water vapor. This fraction (its efficiency) increases as the brine heats, increasing its vapor pressure. This design gave an efficiency of 80% in the lab but 40% in the field in the summer and even less in the winter. Lof [2] proposed another, less efficient, design for a steady state model in 1960. I found it easier

and more accurate to use an unsteady state calculation. An hour to hour calculation o f brine temperature and water production for clear days and nights showed that there were higher temperatures for the windless conditions, that production efficiency was higher during periods of high brine temperature and that shallow pools where temperatures followed periods of radiation gave higher temperatures during production and thus better efficiency. This assumes the pool is perfectly level. Solar distillation is commonly modeled now and the models give the same results. Kumar and Tiwari [3] included multieffect distillation (as in MSF) in their model, which is in section 6. This unit (Fig. 1) survived a hurricane until power was lost and the cover fluttered into tatters. There were several lessons: 1) three mil mylar was strong enough as long as it was tight; 2) the gutter seal was strong enough and tight enough to support the pressure force to hold the mylar tight; 3) survival should not depend on power from the grid.

CAULKIN6 PLASTIC GUTTER t

CLEAR PLASTIC FILM

AIR INFLATED "6 ram. WATER

BRINE 6ROUND I METER CONCRETE INSULATION

Fig. 1. Reference solar still.

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The proposed system uses the opportunities offered by large distinct modules over a total area of a square mile. There is a resemblance between old and new designs in that brine pools will be covered by an arch (or tent) of plastic, but the pools might be 20m wide and the cover thin, supported by gentle air pressure or hung from a wire. Covers would be under windless lab conditions, because an upper flat cover of heavy UV absorbing mylar with wire reinforcing would make quiet air conditions, increase resistance to heat flow, raise brine temperatures and guide rain into storage. The sheets will be fabricated from standard width rolls using special equipment which seals alternate edges of maybe 20 rolls together with hot adhesive. The seams of at least the upper sheet will contain steel wire to provide strength and the support for each roll that the gutter seals did in the 1958 unit. Since the upper sheet will be more or less flat rather than hemicylindrical, it will receive less wind force and will require about 1/3 less plastic. Fig. 2 also shows supports for the upper sheets which will be under compressive load. It was conceived that possible small concrete pipes joined to complete a triangle might be convenient for raising and lowering and would be cheap. The product water would collect in troughs and the edges of the plastic arches would probably be submerged but it is not necessary. Neither insulation of the bottom nor waterproofmg will be needed in the large unit as the bottoms will be below mean sea level. Inflow will be far less than production and heat will not flow out. Efficiency will be higher because of higher brine temperatures. It will be raised further by concentrating the heat into a fraction of the unit. Brine will flow naturally toward the end of a basin where water production and brine removal occur. Replacement brine will displace brine to the other end. Brine will flow from a higher level to the lower when basins are connected. Brine levels will drop fastest in the high temperature

Fig. 2. Proposed square mile still with 60 in wide brine basins. and/or Distributed Multieffect Distillation (DMD) section. It may be useful to have much of the replacement sea water introduced as the sun goes down to concentrate heat into maybe 10% of the area which operates 24 h/d. Its resistance to heat loss might be increased at night by additional layers of plastic possibly metallized to minimize radiant heat flow. This concentrated heat can be mused as shown in Fig. 3. The air will be moved horizontally over brine of increasing temperature, picking up heat and humidity. This is indicated in the figure by dry and wet bulb temperatures (F) above the brine. The hot humid air is then blown countercurrent into a sort of air mattress under the same brine which becomes cool enough to condense the vapor as water and transfer the heat back into the brine above to again heat and humidify the air above. The air mattress would be made by seaming not only the edges of pairs of rolls, but also additional seams to make tubes maybe 4in (15cm) in diameter which inflate to make a channel about 2in high. If atmospheric steam can be added at the hot end, operation would be improved. The steam might be produced by solar

162

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heat from a solar pond or from waste heat. The result is similar to reuse of heat in MSF or MED or LTV except that it does not need to be staged. The system would be ideally located in a shallow sandy bay or bay and tidal fiats near enough to a market for the water. A temporary dam around the area would allow it to be filled with water at a desired level. The presence of water would reduce costs of construction allowing the use of special equipment that is cost effective for large sized units. The pools need to be level but different levels for adjacent pools may help in moving the brine. A special shallow dredge(s) would replace a bulldozer or hand labor in moving sand about to obtain the desired levels. The water surface would be a working reference aided by a laser. Later, the water surface will support huge plastic sheets as they are fabricated by special equipment from regular rolls of plastic, hot melt adhesive and wire. Fig. 4 shows fabrication of large sheets from standard width

rolls and larger sheets from a second pass of the large sheets. Already, at this simple stage, there are many questions the computer can answer. The sun's position is known as a function of location and time of day, hour and minute. Given the cover design, the radiation reaching the brine can be calculated. Given weather and a brine depth, as well the temperature and depth of the brine could be modeled. Put it all in motion for flow between brine pools, various layouts and connections between pools could be considered to follow the concentration of the heat. Before the heat reuse can be calculated, the heat transfer resistances need to be determined by experiment. Optimization chooses the best.
2. E c o n o m i c s

Shortage of fresh water is a barrier to economic development not only for parts of North

R.L. Hummel / Desalination 134 (2001) 159-171

INITIAL STAGE

163

FILM WITH PPORT8 FROM MANUFACTURER

END VIEW OF SEAL

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FINAL STAGES

Fig. 4. Two stages of cover fabrication.

America, the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, but also for Australia, China and India. Some areas have a substantial supply of natural gas which can be used for seawater desalination, but larger areas with larger populations lack this possibility. The question is whether and where solar energy and seawater can be used to remove this barrier to economic development. It is too soon to judge whether these ideas meet the economic criteria to contribute substantially to the solution of the problem. Too much needs to be learned to speculate at present, but it is obvious that the authors believe the system outlined in the paper will make such a contribution in appropriate areas of the world. Optimization is in regard to criteria of performance. More than one can be considered and a weighted average can be used. Safety, reliability and environment can be used, but the critical criteria for general use are economic. The elasticity of the water market to expansion of

fresh water supply by desalination with solar energy when available and by collection of rain and other times is a factor. Does it pay to purchase heat transfer coefficient using power for production of more water? In conventional plants operated on fossil fuels, brine side heat transfer coefficient are purchased at the expense of pumping power. Similarly in the solar DMD system, increased brine side coefficient can be purchased by using power to move brine or air locally. This question must be considered at two stages, during operation and earlier, before construction. The market price of increased production vs. its power cost may vary with time. But the operational choice is not possible unless the equipment has been installed. The design costs are b a s e d upon periodic replacement of the top cover. The lifetime expected depend upon the plastic used, but the question is more than the cost of the material because of the cost of downtime and the work of

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R.L. Hummel~Desalination 134 (2001) 159-171

replacement. It is likely that local repair might be an alternative until the extent and frequency of repair becomes excessive. There is the question of hazards which could be handled by the purchase of insurance, but which would, more likely, be covered by intemal contingency funds. This would include human error, natural disasters such as hurricanes and sandstorms and possibly terrorist activities. The interior of the system would be fatal to human life because of the temperature, but any operations within this interior would be preceded by a discharge of the heat or by protection of the person involved. Accidental release of the heat should generally pose no threat to human life. The cost of hazards would be economic. They can come in response to the disaster or they can come at the beginning in preparations to mitigate the disaster. It is obvious, that preparation should be made to make heavy rain an opportunity to accumulate product rather than a disaster which would collapse the top cover. Hurricanes would interrupt production whether they damaged the top cover or the top cover had been lowered to a water surface for its protection, but the latter choice would require certain design considerations and would avoid the cost of replacement. Sandstorms certainly deserve consideration in many regions where the system might be attractive. The system should not be acutely vulnerable to terrorists unless incendiary bullets could ignite the cover and the flame would travel and not be stuffed out. Possibly this question should be tested in choosing the material of the top cover. If seawater softening is used it may also make it attractive to recover ions like magnesium. If chlorine is needed to prevent biofouling, then the elements bromine and iodine may become attractive byproducts. Data need to be collected from the literature, by experiment and from bids by suppliers and contractors to answer these questions. Can the cost of this data collection be justified? A

preliminary estimate of cost and production is needed. Costs were found by OSW to be prohibitive before. Any one cost found to be excessive can kill the proposal. Let us look for excessive cost in the purchase cost of the materials, in the fabrication and installation of the covers, in the cost of land and its preparation. The information obtained by OSW can be useful for comparison and as input. The cost of the plastic was the factor used in the original thinking during a 10 hour car trip. OSW's contractor offered a choice in 1959 of 3 mil UV protected mylar at a cost of $3.85/pound ($1.60 for mylar alone) or tedlar a t $7/pound. Tedlar would transmit more sunlight and had a expected lifetime of 7 years compared to 3 years for mylar. OSW specified an amortization of 31.3% for 3 years and 7.4% for capital costs. The flat upper surface uses less mylar, 100 tons, than the OSW unit with its curves. The price for mylar remained the same until the 1970's and now reflects the cost of petroleum. There is a choice of trademarks for polyester, new data on lifetimes and new materials to choose from, but the cost of mylar per roll can be used as an upper limit. It is far from excessive. The steel wire weighs 10 times more but costs less. Fabrication and installation are discussed in a later section. Economically the equipment will reduce costs of fabrication, but the unit costs include the savings and the cost of the equipment. At some size the cost and savings will cancel out and the lowest total cost vs. size curve will change slope. Production as a simple unit can be easily estimated from weather data and optical calculations which follow the sun's position. Heat concentration and multiple use of the heat are discussed later. 3. Location The wrong location can alone make the cost prohibitive. OSW's solar still location was Daytona Beach, famous for its white sand which,

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when wet, supports racing cars. How was it leveled? Presumably by bulldozer. What about its tracks? How did they level it to less than 1 cm and what did it cost? By using a carpenter's level and handwork? The land is also of value for building hotels and homes. What would a square mile of this beach cost to acquire? The sand does need waterproofmg to hold its brine above mean sea level. Daytona and Daytona Beach like many pairs of Florida cities are separated by Indian river, a shallow bay and part of a system of bays that go up the US Atlantic coast. There are similar bays on the Gulf coast. I have considered one in detail, Laguna Madre, Texas, a bay roughly 10 miles wide totaling 500 sq. miles, much of it less than a meter deep with tides of 6 in (15 cm) in which a waterway is dredged leaving banks of sand and mud. Padre Island, a sand bank with hotels and homes, separates the bay from the Gulf. (There is a similar Laguna Madre in Mexico of different shape but the same area.) An area of 1 sq. mile could be chosen close enough to a market and in an area that is not ecologically significant and a working area around it dyked. Seawater could be pumped to keep a constant level to operate a pair of shallow airboat type "dredges" to operate over adjacent basins, leveling one to the desired level and using the adjacent basin as a source or sink for sand and thus reduce the amount that the dredge would need to hold. Probably an inventory would be done first so that the computer could plan the operation. The plans would have different levels to make it easier to move brine from pool to pool. Work can be suspended when the wind is excessive and a laser(s) can be as well.
4. H o w to make and raise the cover

The question asked most frequently is about fabrication and erection of the huge upper surface. One possible way is shown in Fig 4. There would be a fabricator in two movable parts capable of

sealing alternate edges between 20 rolls of plastic (11 seams on one side and 10 on the other) at a time. On one side, a water surface would extend the full length and full width of any panels for the purpose of handling the panels. The seams would contain wires and handling will be done entirely by the wires. The wires would be threaded through the fabricator and attached to whatever mechanism would be used to pull and guide the wires. Next the edges from the 20 rolls and the hot adhesive would go into the fabricator feeding mechanism. It might be something like the device that takes two pieces of material and a piece of lace and feeds them all into a sewing machine. The rolls, one above the another, form 19 seams between sheets and 2 special edge seams containing wire for the outer edges (from the top and bottom rolls of plastic). Setup might take the crew 10 or 20 min. Then the wires, the plastic rolls and the hot adhesive would begin feeding through the fabricator pulled and guided by the wires. I would expect it would take no more than an hour and probably less to feed a mile of the sheets through the fabricator. As it exited the fabricator, the wires would spread it out like a fan and bring it in contact with the water surface to spread to its full width. These panels, now 20 rolls wide could be used either as they are or could be assembled with other such panels into a much wider section. The key would remain that one essentially guides the wires and the plastic comes along. Weather permitting, it might take a work week. When it is time to raise the panels to their full height, the arrays of supporting members (shown as two straight pieces joined at the top to form a triangularly braced support) would already be in place under the water and the plastic panels would be on the water surface. Then as a panel is pulled by its wires the supports would be raised, probably a row at a time to pull that section of the panels free of the water and up into position. It might take all day. It could probably be dropped back onto the water surface much more rapidly if

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R.L. Hummel / Desalination 134 (2001) 159--171

it seemed advisable to do so because of, for example, the approach of a hurricane.

5. Concentrating solar energy as heat rather than radiation

Solar energy, at best, is dilute and it is intermittent, blocked by clouds and absent by night. As radiation, it can be concentrated by reflectors. Vertical east west panels of aluminized plastic could be inserted at chosen times to divert sunlight from one pool into another. Solar energy can also be concentrated after the radiation is converted into heat. To move 50% of the heat into 10% of the area is equivalent to 5 suns concentration. It can be collected throughout the basin by day and concentrated by the movement of air and brine into a fraction of the basin both night and day. Part of this movement is natural. The horizontal airflow over the brine collects heat and humidity for DMD and its countercurrent flow under the brine delivers the heat and condenses the humidity in order to reuse the heat. This will naturally concentrate heat and the associated high brine temperature at one end of the DMD section. Evaporation of water from the brine would naturally lower brine levels allowing replacement brine to flow in. This evaporation would be most intense in the DMD section and would increase everywhere with increase in brine temperature. The timing of brine movement from one section into the next can be controlled and brine can be moved in various ways independently of evaporation. Pumps can he used, tides might be used and the DMD ducting could be inflated and deflated to raise and lower the brine surface as part of moving the brine from one section to another. The barriers to brine flow between basins could be standard gates and valves or it could be a plastic section that could be inflated or deflated. Brine and its heat might move throughout the day into the DMD section, but it certainly should be moved into the smaller

DMD area by night to reduce heat loss to the surroundings when solar energy is lacking. Brine must also be moved to discharge it to the outside before it becomes too concentrated. Its residual heat would f'wst be extracted by air flowing over it as described earlier. The final extraction of heat before discharge might take place by night where under proper weather conditions the top cover might be removed to allow the condensing cover direct access to the breeze. On clear nights direct radiation to space and to the almosphere might be more important than the cooling by the breezes. Dual covers give two added quiet air-plastic interfaces to dramatically decrease convective heat transfer, but do less to reduce the parallel radiative heat transfer. Moveable surfaces added at night, especially if aluminized, can do a great deal to insulate pools used for DMD.

6. Multiple use of heat, DMD

Multiple use of the heat of condensation of vapor is key to cutting the costs of traditional distillation units. In MSF, for example, steam goes into the high end exchanger to heat brine. This brine goes to a flash chamber to produce more vapor which goes to another exchanger, condenses to produce more water and to heat brine before it enters the high end exchanger. Heat recovery is repeated with exchangers operating at lower vapor pressures and lower brine temperatures, each multiplying the amount of water produced. The number of effects in MSF is the number of such stages. The number of theoretical effects is a multiplier, water produced/steam used. It can be obtained numerically and graphically. In the Introduction and in Fig. 3 reuse of heat in the proposed system was presented. Effects are not identified by physical boundaries but by the multiplier, water produced/ input heat (in units of the heat of vaporization of steam). If only DMD was involved, this could be

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estimated by drawing steps on a temperature vs. length diagram. There are several differences between this multi use, DMD, in large areas (i.e. 0.1 mile:) and current systems in which the heat transfer surfaces are crammed into a small space. Shell and tube exchangers are expensive, more so if the tubes survive brine; but they have advantages: a small footprint, use of high pressure steam, 24 h/d operation, tiny heat losses and high heat transfer coefficients. Steam condensation, possibly dropwise, has a high film coefficient if free of air and the brine coefficient can be increased by a high velocity using multiple passes on the brine side. It is costly to stuff expensive heat exchanger surface into a limited area. Kern gives for a 39 in diameter (0.99m) by 16in (4.88m) long, one pass, heat exchanger with a close packed array of in tubes, 1377 tubes with an area of 4325 ft2. A cleanable shell side array holds 1206 tubes with an area of 3295 fi2. My design offers millions of it 2 to be used for heat exchange. It takes 231 exchangers/million ft2 for the close packed array (306 condensers/million It2 for a cleanable array). How do the costs compare? A ratio of more than 1000? Factor in overall heat transfer coefficient (from brine to brine or from air to air) with the cost of area and the difference is reduced. For shell and tube exchangers the coefficient might be 1000Btu/hF if sufficient pumping power is used on the brine side. For the plastic solar still one might guess coefficients 1% as high and the cost advantage allows 1000 times the area making the solar still a winner over shell and tube. What if the solar still coefficient could be increased to 3% of the conventional? The heat transfer depends on resistance to condensation, to heat flow through the plastic, the brine and the surface resistance. Dropwise condensation should help, the degree of inflation (shape) may affect the heat transfer to water and inflation could be pulsed to increase heat transfer.

The resistance of plastic depends very much on its formulation and thickness, but is not the major concern. Natural convection of the brine would come from the tube shape, rising along the line of t h e top and a similar convection of the air might be induced if the scale is right. The resistance through the brine and its surface might be reduced by waves or by jets of air or brine. Solar basins offer huge areas at low cost, but always operate at atmospheric pressure, almost always have air with the water vapor. The heat flows in a section of basin include both input by DMD and air and brine moving through but also local addition (solar) by day and loss to the outside over 24h. While the sun is shining there is a brine temperature, below which local input will predominate and above which loss will. As heat is added from solar ponds or as waste heat and the hot brine is moved into smaller areas, these gains and losses become less important. Part of optimization is to decide on where and when to use DMD and whether to further insulate its area part or all the time. There are many things to consider in optimizing the solar system, but the DMD part is most critical because DMD multiplies production. Money will be involved, both the savings and the costs needed for improvements. The vapor flow is given by the water produced in the tubes below the brine, that is the overall heat transfer coefficient times area times temperature difference. The area for heat transfer is that of the curved upper surface of the tube times the length. Local flow velocity is increased by total length and decreased by the cross sectional area. Vapor flow will decrease and water flow increase along the length but the total flow will include the air. If the humid air enters with 90% vapor then the total flow will be half when the vapor is 40%. Kumar and Tiwari [3] and Kumar et al. [4] present solar distillation with heat coming from within and without the distillation system which may be multieffect. Traditional solar hot water units provide hot

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R.L. Hummel~Desalination 134 (2001) 159-171

brine to one or more distillation units covered by glass at a small inclination and stacked. The flat plate solar heaters correspond to our use of a solar pond or of waste heat from power or water production. My childhood home in Miami used such solar heaters in the 1940's and they were common in California around 1915. They can have high efficiency (i.e. 80%) especially if the storage tank is well insulated and the unit uses a selective black to absorb solar energy. They operate by natural convection but only when the water in the heater is hotter than the stored water. Glass makes stacking easy which limits heat loss to the top cover. A solar pond has low efficiency but high temperature. I have considered stacking my DMD sections, but it is probably not economical. Heat loss is reduced by multiple covers and the radiation component can be made negligible with insertion of plastic coated with aluminum on both sides. The advantage on the proposed system is again cost.

7. A Solar pond of 1961 and now A Hungarian lake was observed to be hot at depth due to salinity of the deep water and the observation was passes on to Tabor who made a "solar pond" with brine of various densities (concentrations) as the transparent cover to insulate effectively, suppressing convection and reducing heat loss. Tabor [5] reported at the UN meeting on New Sources of Energy in Rome in 1961 results from an experimental pond, one meter deep and using salt and magnesium chloride for the density gradient. It reached a temperature just short of the boiling point within a season, but difficulties were found, the wind tended to mix the brine and pick up dirt which then settled to a matching density. My plastic sheets spread to attach to the surface would solve both problems. Indeed we later considered removal of dirt from the surface by flooding it and then sweeping it by water jets

and/or a special airboat used as a sweeper. A further sheet(s) could separate a concentrated brine layer from a lower layer of brine to be heated. Depth increases pressure and potential for thermosiphon flashing of steam which would be an ideal addition to DMD, extending its temperature range. Considerable work has been done on solar ponds since 1961 using sodium chloride alone to provide the density gradient. Much of it has been done with a pool 10ft deep using a facility design for other purposes. Ten feet is deep enough to produce seawater hot enough to flash at atmospheric pressure and produce atmospheric steam. Such steam, because of its temperature, minimal air content and ability to generate pulses in the DMD duct, would be especially useful in DMD. Furthermore the solar pond could supply its heat equally well at night to keep the DMD system working well overnight. There is however a drawback to a solar pond obvious to anyone who has taken underwater photographs or seen the early four wavelength satellite pictures of the earth. Pure, clear water attenuates solar radiation rapidly with depth, some wavelengths more than others. Green penetrates most deeply, red disappears rapidly altering the color balance of the photographs. The satellite photographs show that the two infrared wavelengths are absorbed by shallow water and by puddles respectively. Thus much, probably most, of the solar energy does not reach the deep levels. Where the solar pond heat fails in quantity, it makes up in quality. A solar pond is cheap to build and operate and is almost indestructible.

8. Modeling and optimization The concentration of heat by moving brine is a simple concept with simple physics which shows the need of computer modeling and optimization. Flow is by gravity or pumping. The position of the sun as a function of location

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and time is easily calculated. Even weather can be included. If a magic wand could instantly move solar heated brine from 90% of the area and add it to that in the remaining 10% when the sun set and could reverse this when the sun rose, the result could be calculated with paper and pencil. The rate of heat loss overnight would be reduced by the reduction of area, Consider realistic cases. Production of 10 million gallons over a square mile would lower the average level by about 1cm. Suppose replacement water was allowed to enter over the entire width of a single pool on one end (possibly by deflating a barrier to the surrounding sea and possibly at the time of high tide). The flow required to replace 1cm over the entire pool would come through the one end would displace that depth of brine or much more from the entrance end. If there were plug flow and the depth of the pool were 15 cm, essentially all of the brine would be displaced from the first 10% of the pool. If the level was 1 cm, then refilling would displace the heated brine into of the pool. The same would happen in a collection of adjacent ponds connected at alternate ends to an extended pool for flow. Or the flow could be timed by controlling the time of connection. Moving the brine creates a temperature gradient along the pool. Once a gradient exists more heat will be lost from hotter brine and a larger fraction of the heat will result in water production. Thus there would be a flow within a pool toward the hot end without addition of fresh brine. On addition of fresh brine, this hotter brine would be displaced to the far end. Operating depth for evaporation depends on how level the pool bottom is. If it had been leveled to within 1 cm, then the pool could operate to a final depth of 1cm with brine throughout and it would be filled to a depth of three cm, concentrating the brine in the far end into the area and providing a flow of fresh brine of essentially ten times the volume of the

first 10% of the pool and it will not however be displaced as with a piston, ffthe flow is slow, the velocity gradient will be parabolic, leaving hot liquid at the bottom surface. However, if the flow is slow, gravity will mix the hotter brine into the flow. If the flow is fast, turbulence will essentially produce plug flow. In any case all the solar heated brine will be pushed into half of the pool. Even if it occurs gradually, the hot brine will accumulate at the closed end while the entrance end will approach the temperature of external seawater. However, evaporation will not take place uniformly, but will be concentrated at the hot end, increasing the degree of displacement. If in addition to the replacement of brine, the air flows in the same direction picking up heat and humidity, it will add to the effect of concentrating the heat to the one end. If that hot humid air is then returned under the brine surface in a DMD system, it will further increase the evaporation. This might make more sense is there were ten adjacent pools connected alternatively at the east and west to provide the equivalent of one large pool and the DMD was installed in the last one, it would essentially suck brine from all the other nine, It would be possible but costly to flush the heated brine into the smaller area by a turbulent flood of new seawater in the evening. In the morning excess of fresh seawater would be discharged and replaced by preheated brine and both brine and new seawater would be heated by the sun. The calculation would be much more difficult. With a computer, it is possible to consider this and other possibilities and optimize among them. The layout could be arranged to facilitate transfer, the level of the various basin's floors could make the transfers easy, the timing and rates of brine movement could reflect the time, weather and demand. Optimization will be needed at several stages. It will be needed for day to day and hour to hour operation. Optimized operation will respond to

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the weather and possibly to the tides. Where changes take time, the weather must be anticipated and performance will depend on the quality of weather forecasts. The brine could be shit~ed between basins in anticipation of clear or cloudy or windy conditions during normal operation. An extreme example of anticipation is extending the mean lifetime of the top cover by protecting it from hurricanes. The design could facilitate lowering the lower covers and the top cover to a water surface or submerging them under a layer of water. Optimization will be needed in design and construction, which determine both the capital cost and the options for operation. Feedback will be needed from suppliers and contractors on costs at a preliminary design stage to optimize the final design. Details too small to affect cost of construction will be needed to make the system work. Construction must be staged to avoid problems. Optimization is not possible without reliable input. To a large extent the input will be from models of performance. Some of the data for models is not available and must be determined experimentally. The most critical of this need is for the heat transfer coefficients for the DMD operation. There are many ways in which the coefficients can be improved and they change costs. The cost benefit ratio needs to be determined. Considerable work has been done in the department to develop means to compute complex systems and to obtain the global optimum. Considerable work has also been done in this department on developing plastics and composites with desired properties which may be invaluable to the design of the DMD ducts.

9. Materials

There have been great advances in making and understanding polymers and composites which

could improve the proposed system. New materials and methods of fabrication for the covers could be considered. High strength polymers and composites including hot rolled polyethylene could be considered as replacement for or in addition to steel wires. Our department has been active in developing such materials and hold patents on various aspects such as reducing creep. These could improve the initial costs or the life expectancy (long term costs), but they are less important than the materials to be used in DMD and their properties. Resistance to heat flow depends on thickness and conductivity of the material. Polymers vary greatly in conductivity from the low conductivity of polypropylene with its floating methyl group to conjugated systems. Additives such as mica or graphite or metal flakes can change strength, stiffness, life and conductivity. Should the material of the DMD ducts be highly flexible or even elastic like our arteries to support pulsatile operation or do we want stiff and strong materials? What type and pattern of condensation is wanted? How does the material affect depositions and/or its removal? These questions involve learning about DMD heat transfer and materials. The use of plastic materials in place of various types of metal alloys has thin considered. That advantages of lower costs, are erosion corrosion resistance, lighter weight and lower energy for producing a unit mass. It is easy to achieve drop wise condensation on plastics. The disadvantages listed are thermal conductivity and thermal expansion. It is stated is the thermal conductivity of plastics is 100 to 300 times lower than metals which results in a need for impossibly thin sections and the thermal expansion is ten times higher which necessitates special design considerations. There are open design, thermal expansion is immaterial. Also the important factors not thermal conductivity divided by thickness but should also include area per unit cost. And of course the resistance of the solid is only a part of the overall resistance. They need to

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be considered together and the greatest gains come from reducing the greatest resistances. It is generally believed that the highest thermal conductivity is found in metals. Actually at room temperature the thermal conductivity of diamond is higher than that of silver, the best metal. Often plastics are used in composites to obtain added strength and other properties. One heavily loaded with diamond dust would have both highstrength and good conductivity, but would be unduly expensive. But silver is not used either because it is too expensive. The metals used were chosen on the basis of cost and corrosion resistance and are typically 20 times less conductive than silver or copper. One might consider the composites of plastic and fine copper wires. Graphite has very high conductivity in two directions and is cheap and easily delaminated into flakes. A composite where minute flakes could be oriented at least partially across the thickness, could provide an excellent material.

that solar distillation can be competitive if attention is paid to costs and effectiveness making full use of scale and current knowledge. Such a system is more complex and difficult to optimize, but its advantages give sufficient promise to go ahead. This paper has given just a taste of what has been discussed or considered. Much more is needed from experiment, from literature review and from detailed design with bids from suppliers and contractors. Much of this, such as the heat transfer coefficients for DMD, has been discussed in the paper. People in areas where the system might be attractive need to be involved should be involved to decide if indeed it would be attractive. The costs of the first steps are small and are well justified by the promise of a solar system. If it, like RO, succeeds, then others will improve it further.

References 10. Conclusion

Before 1960, reverse osmosis seemed impossibly expensive, but Loeb and Sourirajan had an idea which worked out. OSW, to its credit, gave their membrane a chance to be demonstrated and reverse osmosis has become highly competitive. Earlier OSW gave solar energy a chance and found it was impossibly expensive. No Loeb or Sourirajan was chosen. This paper proposes that it is equally possible

[1] F.E. Eldin, Paper presented at CNRS Meeting on Solar Energy, Mounlouis, France, June 1958. [2] G.O.Lof, Design and cost factors of large basin-type solar stills, Symposium on Saline Water Conversion, Nov. 1958,568, 157. [3] S. Kumar and G.N. Tiwad, Desalination, 121 (1999) 87. [4] S. Kumar, G.N. Tiwad and H.N. Singh, Desalination, 127 (2000) 79. [5] H.Z. Tabor, Large area solar collectors (solar ponds) for power production, UN Conference on New Sources of Energy, Rome, 1961.