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Title:	Productivity enhancement and modeling of a passive inclined copper-stepped solar still for seawater desalination
Authors:	Mohammed Shadi S. A. Abujazar (P75774)
Supervisor:	Fatihah Suja', Prof. Ir. Dr.
Keywords:	Drinking water Potable water Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia -- Dissertations
Issue Date:	12-Apr-2017
Description:	The lack of access to clean drinking water is a worldwide problem, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas. In order to solve this problem, various advanced technology desalination techniques using fossil fuel or electrical energy derived from fossil fuel, are used all over the world, either by thermo process or by membrane process. The continued use of these techniques has direct effects on the global warming and it has high economical costs. Solar still is reviewed as an alternative technique of using solar to supply potable water at low cost, with low or zero greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this research project includes to design, construct and investigate on the feasibility of using an inclined copper-stepped solar still for production of drinking water from seawater. Experimental set-up was built under the meteorological conditions of Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia (Latitude 2.939671°N and longitude 101.78784°E) and series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the system performance under different operating conditions. The inclined copper-stepped solar still has internal dimensions of 1.8 m length (L), 1.2 m width (W), and 0.20 m height (H) which consists of 28 trays made from copper material. The tray dimensions are 0.06 m in height and 1.2 m in length, are placed in a stainless-steel box, the side wall and bottom gap between the absorber plate and stainless steel box is filled with 6-cm sawdust for insulation purposes to control and minimize heat loss. The system was designed with a footprint area reduction of 13.6% and effective evaporation area enlargement of 55.6% compared to a conventional solar type basin. During the threemonth operation period, the environmental parameters (solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind velocity, humidity and cloud cover) and operational parameters (outer, inner of glass cover, vapour, water and basin (tray) temperatures) were monitored in hourly basis. The distillate water from the system was measured in mL/m2d, and the productivity was in range 970 to 4383 mL/m2d. Distillate water quality was compared with that of Malaysia National Drinking Water Quality Standards. It was shown that the efficiency of TDS, TSS, salinity, electric Conductivity, and turbidity removals were 99.98%, 99.7%, 100%, 98.98%, and 98.96% respectively. Whilst the concentration removal of atomic elements achieved were 99.98% of Cl-, 99.98% of Na+, 99.94% of Mg2+, 99.98% of SO4 2-, 99.87% of Ca2+, and 99.94% of K+. Experimental results also show 98.314% removals of COD concentration, 44% BOD concentration were discarded and up to 98.8% removal efficiency of NH3-N. A theoretical model, multiple linear regression model and Cascaded Forward Neural Network Model (CFNN) model were used for productivity prediction. Out of these three models CFNN model shows more accuracy in modeling the stepped solar still system and exceeds the regression and linear models. The Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), and Mean Bias Error (MBE) values for the proposed CFNN model are 22.48%, 18.51%, and -14.51% respectively. Thus, the CFNN model is recommended for modeling and characterizing the productivity of the stepped solar still.,Ph.D.
Pages:	354
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment / Fakulti Kejuruteraan dan Alam Bina

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