Système hybride combinant capteurs thermiques et matériaux à changement de phase (PCM).

Abstract

The supply of drinking water is one of the most pressing issues of our time, as water demand is increasing while natural resources are diminishing or even disappearing. The desalination of seawater and/or brackish water can help increase water potential, but this process requires a large amount of energy, which contributes to the cost of water. In regions with high solar exposure, solar distillation appears to be a very promising solution. However, the challenge lies in the low efficiency of this type of process. To overcome this drawback, this work explores the combination of a solar distiller and a hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system with phase change materials PCMs.After establishing thermal balances reflecting the transient thermal behavior of the hybrid PV/T collector and the distiller with PCM, the resulting coupled systems of nonlinear differential equations are solved using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. The results reveal the effect of the PCM on the distiller's performance. The output of the coupled system reaches a value of approximately 2.5 kg/m²·h, which is higher than that of the distiller operating alone, which is about 1.05 kg/m²·h. In addition, the influence of various parameters on the performance of the coupled system is studied.