Organic phase change materials as thermal energy storage for automated solar seawater desalination system

Abstract

A prototype of an automated solar seawater desalination system equipped with thermal energy storage was designed and developed to analyze experimentally the effect of adding organic phase change materials (palm wax and beeswax) to the desalination system’s efficiency. The desalination machine was set up with two configurations: with organic and without organic PCMs. While the setup without a PCM can produce an average of 30.8 mL per day and convert 2.056% of the total volume of input water to an output peak of 48.5 mL using solar energy, the setup with a PCM can produce an average daily water production of 68.9 mL and convert 4.6% of the input water volume with the highest record output of 104.5 mL compared to configurations without PCM, the organic PCM system with a 1:1.2 mixture of beeswax and palm wax can produce an average of 123.7%.