Integration of Al2O3, CuO, and TiO2 nanofluids for efficient solar desalination

This paper aims at the integration of Al2O3, CuO, and TiO2 nanofluids for two configurations of solar desalination (SS distillation: SS with and without nanoparticle, named SSWN, SS respectively; and SS hybrid with and without nanoparticle, named SSHWN and SSH, respectively). In order to improve the productivity of a SS, a nanoparticle Al2O3 is integrated with different concentrations (1%, 3% and 5%). The results show very well that the addition of nanofluid regardless of the configurations of SS increases the cumulative productivity whatever the SSHWN or SSWN configuration is important compared to that of SS and SSH (SSHWN admits a Pcu equal to 10.8 kg/m2 h and of the order of 1.6 kg/m2 h for SSWN) while Pcu does not exceed 6.8 kg/m2 h with SSH and 0.45 kg/m2 h with SS configuration. We also notice that Pcu increases with the increase in the concentration of nanoparticles (5% the Pcu is 10.8 kg/m2 h for SSHWN and does not exceed 6 kg/m2 h SSH) the theoretical study well predicts the experimental results as regards the evolution of Pcu. The experimental study with different nanoparticles such as TiO2 and CuO with a concentration of 5% shows Pcu (Al2O3) > Pcu (TiO2) > Pcu (CuO). The thermal conductivity for hybrid solar still for different volume fractions of nanofluid has been proved. Al2O3 admits the highest thermal conductivity (knf/kbf) the highest equal to 1.249 than that of CuO with 1.245 and finally TiO2 1.205. A comparative study was carried out with that the correlations of Maxwell and Bruggeman gives a very good linear regression than that of our work (R2 = 0.99).