Investigation of Photovoltaic Membrane Desalination Utilizing Storage Heat in Solar Cells.

Solar-assisted Photovoltaic-Membrane Distillation (PMD) is a passive tool to cool and distillate salty water. A theoretical study was conducted in the current work using the COMSOL Multiphysics version 5.6 to develop the CFD model of the PMD. The meteorological data of Baghdad-Iraq was obtained using Meteonorm software V8.0.3.Effects of membrane thickness, space between evaporation and condensation layer, height of fins, number of fins, and inlet water temperature on cell temperature and water productivity were investigated. Thickness of 100 µm exhibited a minimum temperature polarization and maximum membrane coefficient. Space thickness of 2.5 mm exhibited a temperature difference of 4°C between evaporation and condensation layers. Integrating the PMD system into solar panel reduced the cell surface temperature by 7oC. Adding a heat sink of 5 fins with a fin height of 2 cm resulted in a maximum cell temperature of 50 oC and yielded water at point 0.615 kg/h.m2 rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]