Abstract This work aims to design a small-scale desalination unit for producing drinking water in remote places (~2 L/person). It considers an equipment where vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) and direct solar heating through solar flat-plate collector (FPC) are coupled within the same intensified module, with photovoltaic (PV) panels providing electricity. An adapted heat pumping strategy is conceived to bridge between the heat-demanding feed recirculation and the heat-releasing vapor condensation, aiming both to recover latent heat of evaporation and to condense vapor without using an additional intensive cooling system. Sensitivity analyses and multi-objective optimizations are provided, based on water production and electric consumption of both pumping and cooling, to orientate the design and to discuss the key issues for an optimal operation. Results reveal that for a tiny module (0.18 m2), a daily freshwater production of 3.7 L can be obtained with an average electric consumption of 17 W (~0.13 m2 PV). At a relatively bigger scale (3 m2), 96 L of freshwater is attained at a consumption of 449 W (~3.26 m2 PV). The need for PV power capacity per unit water production is almost constant, ranging in 4.2–5 W L−1.

中文翻译：

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一种新型小型集成真空膜蒸馏-太阳能平板集热器模块的优化设计及热泵热回收策略

摘要 这项工作旨在设计一种用于在偏远地区（~2 L/人）生产饮用水的小型海水淡化装置。它考虑了一种设备，其中真空膜蒸馏 (VMD) 和通过太阳能平板集热器 (FPC) 的直接太阳能加热在同一个强化模块内耦合，光伏 (PV) 面板提供电力。一种经过调整的热泵策略被设想在需要热量的进料再循环和放热蒸汽冷凝之间架起一座桥梁，旨在回收蒸发潜热并在不使用额外的强化冷却系统的情况下冷凝蒸汽。根据泵送和冷却的产水量和电力消耗，提供敏感性分析和多目标优化，以定位设计并讨论优化操作的关键问题。结果表明，对于一个微型模块 (0.18 m2)，每天可生产 3.7 L 的淡水，平均耗电量为 17 W (~0.13 m2 PV)。在相对较大的规模（3 平方米）下，消耗 449 瓦（~3.26 平方米 PV）可获得 96 升淡水。单位产水量对光伏发电容量的需求几乎是恒定的，范围在 4.2-5 W L-1。