Author(s)

Mahmoud Ammous^1*, Sana Charfi¹, Ahmad Harb^2*, Maher Chaabene¹

¹University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia.
²School of Natural Resources Engineering and Management, German Jordanian University, Amman, Jordan.

Photovoltaic based reverse osmosis desalination systems (PV/RO) present an effective method of water desalination especially in remote areas. The increase of the feed water temperature leads to an amelioration of the plant performances. Photovoltaic Thermal Collector (PV/T) represents an ideal power source as it provides both electric and thermal energies for the reverse osmosis process. Nevertheless, PV/T based RO plants should be controlled in order to solve operation problems related to electrical efficiency, reverse osmosis membrane, produced water and the rejected salts. This paper suggests a fuzzy logic controller for the flow rate of the circulating fluid into the PV/T collectors so as to ameliorate the system performances. The designed controller has improved the PV/T field electrical efficiency and preserved the reverse osmosis membrane which upgrades the system productivity. LABVIEW software is used to simulate the controlled system and validate the effectiveness of the controller.

PV/T Collector, Reverse Osmosis, Control, Fuzzy Logic Controller

Ammous, M. , Charfi, S. , Harb, A. and Chaabene, M. (2016) Improvement of PV/T Based Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant Performances Using Fuzzy Logic Controller. International Journal of Modern Nonlinear Theory and Application, 5, 11-27. doi: 10.4236/ijmnta.2016.51002.