Category: Industrial Process Heat, Chemistry Applications, and Solar Dryers

Another application intended for the agricultural industry is the greenhouse. The basic function of a greenhouse is to provide environmental conditions that accelerate the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the driving force for plant growth, in which CO2 is transformed into H2O, using solar energy, to carbohydrates and oxygen. Photosynthesis is highly sensitive to environmental factors.…

Generally, drying (or dewatering) is a simple process of excess water (moisture) removal from a natural or an industrial product to preserve it (foodstuff) or to reach a specified moisture content. Drying is an energy-intensive process, especially when used for food products, as these generally have a water content which is much higher (about 25–80%)…

Solar chemistry applications include a variety of fields; the main ones are the production of energy carriers (e.g. hydrogen), also called reforming of fuels; fuel cells; materials processing and detoxification; and recycling of waste materials. These are examined in this section. 7.3.1 Reforming of fuels Solar energy is essentially unlimited and its utilization does not create…

Parabolic trough collectors are frequently employed for solar steam generation because relatively high temperatures can be obtained without serious degradation in the collector efficiency. Low-temperature steam can be used in industrial applications, in sterilization, and for powering desalination evaporators. Three methods have been employed to generate steam using parabolic trough collectors (Kalogirou et al., 1997):…

Beyond the low-temperature applications, there are several potential fields of application for solar thermal energy at a medium and medium–high temperature level (80–240 °C). The most important of them is heat production for industrial processes, which represents a significant amount of heat. For example, industrial heat demand constitutes about 15% of the overall demand of final…