Justification of village scale photovoltaic powered electrodialysis desalination systems for rural India

This thesis justifies photovoltaic (PV)-powered electrodialysis (ED) as an energy and cost-effective means of desalinating groundwater in rural India and presents the design requirements for a village-level system. Saline groundwater, which underlies 60% of India, can negatively impact health as well as cause a water source to be discarded because of its taste. A quarter of India's population lives in villages of 2000-5000 people, many of whom do not have reliable access to electricity. Most village-scale, ongrid desalination plants use reverse osmosis (RO), which is economically unviable in off-grid locations. Technical and ethnographic factors are used to develop an argument for PV-ED for rural locations, including: system capacity, biological and chemical contaminant removal; water aesthetics; recovery ratio; energy source; economics of water provision; maintenance; and the energetic and cost considerations of available technologies. Within the salinity range of groundwater in India, ED requires less specific energy than RO (75% less at 1,000 ppm and 30% less at 3,000 ppm). At 2,000 ppm, this energetic scaling translates to a 50% lower PV power system cost for ED versus RO. PV-ED has the potential to greatly expand the reach of desalination units for rural India. Additionally, a theoretical model for an electrodialysis system is presented and validated through experimental trials.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Wright, Natasha C. (Natasha Catherine)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Amos G. Winter, V.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/92115

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/92115