Solar-Powered Direct Contact Membrane Distillation System: Performance and Water Cost Evaluation

Fresh water is crucial for life, supporting human civilizations and ecosystems, its production one of the global issues. To cope with this issue, we evaluated performance cost a solar-powered direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) unit fresh in Karachi, Pakistan. The solar heating system (SWHS) was help advisor model (SAM) tool. evaluation DCMD performed by solving mathematical through numerical iterative method MATLAB software®. For SWHS, simulation results showed that highest average temperature 55.05 °C lowest 44.26 were achieved May December, respectively. capacity factor fraction SWHS found to be 27.9% 87%, An exponential increase from 11.4 kg/m2·h 23.23 permeate flux observed when increasing hot temperatures 44 56 °C. In proposed system, maximum 279.82 L/day produced minimum 146.83 January. On average, 217.66 levelized 23.01 USD/m3.