Shoaib Khanmohammadi

In the present paper, a solar-based Kalina cycle integrated with reverse osmosis desalination (RO) unit and a thermoelectric generator (TEG) system is modeled thermodynamically and exergy analysis is conducted. A parabolic through solar collector (PTSC) is used to provide the necessary heat to drive the system. Engineering Equation Solver (EES) is employed to carry out thermodynamic simulation and exergy analysis of suggested system. Parametric study of resented system to show the influences of primary variables on the system performance is conducted. The system in this study generates 212.7 kW electrical power and 44.46 𝑚3/ℎ. The overall energy efficiency of system is 24.3%. The inlet thermal energy from PTSC is 876.5 kW. In addition, the thermoelectric module generates 7.26 kW electrical power. Carried out analyses show that recuperator has the most significant exergy destruction rate among all components of system with 303.2 kW. The second largest exergy destruction rate belongs to the RO unit with 74.22 kW. To investigate the effect of influences of parameters like direct normal irradiance (DNI), turbine inlet pressure, and mass flow rate of Kalina cycle a parametric study is conducted on the system. It can be observed that increasing DNI parameter from 750 𝑊/𝑚2 to 1000 𝑊/𝑚2 results in net output power increment from 279.1 kW to 372.1 kW and increasing fresh water production from 41.64 𝑚3/ℎ to 48.09 𝑚3/ℎ. Moreover, the calculation shows that increasing DNI has the positive impact on the TEG unit output power too. The enhancement of the inlet turbine pressure increases both net output power and fresh water production by reverse osmosis unit while this increment diminish the thermoelectric unit electrical output. It can be observed that increasing turbine inlet pressure from 110 kPa to 200 kPa, increase net output power and fresh water production about 6.08% and 3.5%, respectively.