AGRICULTURAL SOLAR POND

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

  The sun is the largest source of renewable energy and this
energy is abundantly available in all parts of the earth. It is
in fact one of the best alternatives to the nonrenewable
sources of energy .
 Solar energy has been used since prehistoric times, but in
a most primitive manner. Before 1970, some research and
development was carried out in a few countries to exploit
solar energy more efficiently, but most of this work
remained mainly academic.
 One way to trap solar energy is through the use of solar
ponds. Solar ponds are large-scale energy collectors with
integral heat storage for supplying thermal energy. It can be
use for various applications, such as process heating, water
desalination, refrigeration, drying and power generation.
  A solar pond is a body of water that collects and stores solar energy.
Solar energy will warm a body of water (that is exposed to the sun), but
the water loses its heat unless some method is used to trap it. Water
warmed by the sun expands and rises as it becomes less dense. Once it
reaches the surface, the water loses its heat to the air through
convection, or evaporates, taking heat with it. The colder water, which is
heavier, moves down to replace the warm water, creating a natural
convective circulation that mixes the water and dissipates the heat. The
design of solar ponds reduces either convection or evaporation in order
to store the heat collected by the pond. They can operate in almost any
climate .
 A solar pond can store solar heat much more efficiently than a body of
water of the same size because the salinity gradient prevents convection
currents. Solar radiation entering the pond penetrates through to the
lower layer, which contains concentrated salt solution. The temperature
in this layer rises since the heat it absorbs from the sunlight is unable to
move upwards to the surface by convection. Solar heat is thus stored in
the lower layer of the pond.
 The solar pond works on a very simple principle. It is well-known that
water or air is heated they become lighter and rise upward. Similarly, in
an ordinary pond, the sun’s rays heat the water and the heated water
from within the pond rises and reaches the top but loses the heat into
the atmosphere. The net result is that the pond water remains at the
atmospheric temperature. The solar pond restricts this tendency by
dissolving salt in the bottom layer of the pond making it too heavy to
rise.
 A solar pond is an artificially constructed water pond in which
significant temperature rises are caused in the lower regions by
preventing the occurrence of convection currents. The more specific
terms salt-gradient solar pond or non-convecting solar pond are also
used. The solar pond, which is actually a large area solar collector is a
simple technology that uses a pond between one to four metres deep as
a working material
 The solar pond possesses a thermal storage capacity spanning the
seasons. The surface area of the pond affects the amount of solar energy
it can collect . The dark surface at the bottom of the pond increases the
absorption of solar radiation. Salts like magnesium chloride, sodium
chloride or sodium nitrate are dissolved in the water, the concentration
being densest at the bottom (20% to 30%) and gradually decreasing to
almost zero at the top. Typically, a salt gradient solar pond consists of
three zones.
 An upper convective zone of clear fresh water that acts as solar
collector/receiver and which is relatively the most shallow in depth and
is generally close to ambient temperature.
 A gradient which serves as the non-convective zone which is much
thicker and occupies more than half the depth of the pond. Salt
concentration and temperature increase with depth.
 A lower convective zone with the densest salt concentration, serving
as the heat storage zone. Almost as thick as the middle non-convective
zone, salt concentration and temperatures are nearly constant in this
zone
 When solar radiation strikes the pond, most of it is absorbed by the
surface at the bottom of the pond. The temperature of the dense salt
layer therefore increases . But the salt density difference keeps the
‘layers’ of the solar pond separate . The denser salt water at the bottom
prevents the heat being transferred to the top layer of fresh water by
natural convection, due to which the temperature of the lower layer may
rise to as much as 95°C
• CONVECTING SOLAR PONDS
A well-researched example of a convecting pond is the shallow solar
pond. This pond consists of pure water enclosed in a large bag that
allows convection but hinders evaporation. The bag has a blackened
bottom, has foam insulation below, and two types of glazing (sheets of
plastic or glass) on top. The sun heats the water in the bag during the
day. At night the hot water is pumped into a large heat storage tank to
minimize heat loss. Excessive heat loss when pumping the hot water to
the storage tank has limited the development of shallow solar ponds
• NON-CONVECTING SOLAR PONDS
 The main types of non-convecting ponds is salt gradient ponds. A salt
gradient pond has three distinct layers of brine (a mixture of salt and
water) of varying concentrations. Because the density of the brine
increases with salt concentration, the most concentrated layer forms at
the bottom. The least concentrated layer is at the surface. The salts
commonly used are sodium chloride and magnesium chloride. A dark-
colored material usually butyl rubber lines the pond.

 As sunlight enters the pond, the water and the lining absorb the solar
radiation. As a result, the water near the bottom of the pond becomes
warm up to 93.3°C. Even when it becomes warm, the bottom layer
remains denser than the upper layers, thus inhibiting convection.
Pumping the brine through an external heat exchanger or an evaporator
removes the heat from this bottom layer. Another method of heat
removal is to extract heat with a heat transfer fluid as it is pumped
through a heat exchanger placed on the bottom of the pond
As we progressed with our research on how to build a solar pond, which
in actual time will be efficiently able to extract energy, the main
problem we faced theoretically seemed to be the ability of converting
into agriculture solar pond. So we started with questioning ourselves how
efficient a solar pond could be? And with ample opportunity and research
we came to know how the efficiency of a solar pond could be greatly
affected by the factor of heating water that can be as much as 6-7%.
Hence, we started by building up on the heating water and further spent
our time researching in order to deal with the physics behind the built of
a solar pond.
1.Cleanliness of pond since transmittance can be reduced due to
contaminants. Filtration can remove contaminants . Construction of
larger ponds can minimize the effect of contaminants.
2. Increase of UCZ caused by surface waves and evaporation. Use of
floating nets and wind barriers can reduce surface waves and mixing of
UCZ.
3. Algae and bacterial growth. Algae growth can be controlled by adding
bleaching powder . Alternatively , algae growth can be minimized by
adding 1.5mg CuSO4 per liter of water. If the water used is alkaline
,CuSO4 will not dissolve.
The pond clarity can be maintained and the thermal efficiency of the
solar pond can be improved by using a combination of chemical and
biological treatment methods . Hydrochloric acid could be used initially
as a shock treatment to kill all the algae and then introduction of brine
shrimps would control the growth of algal and maintain transparency .
Cupricide is found to be more effective than chlorine and is therefore
recommended chemical for algae control in solar ponds. Chlorine is more
corrosive than Cupricide due to the acidic effect it has on the pH.

4.Horizontal temperature gradient created by salt solution and removal .

Injecting and removing salt solutions very slowly can minimize horizontal
temperature gradient.
5. Effect of Coal Cinder placed at the bottom Coal cinder has a good
insulating property , absorptivity , and low thermal diffusivity. Many
researchers have studied experimentally as well as theoretically , the
effect of placing coal cinder at the bottom of SGSP. They used three
identical plastic tanks for the experiment , each having a base area of
0.4m× 0.25 m and a height of 0.3 m. First of these three tanks was left
untreated (without any treatment on the bottom),the second tank was
painted black on the inside bottom and in the third tank a thin layer of
coal cinder was spread on the bottom. It was found that the highest
temperature of 65.5 degree C was achieved in the third tank which had a
layer of coal cinder at the bottom at about 13:00 hrs. It was 14 degree C
and 12 degree C higher than that of the untreated tank and the tank
containing black plastic cover at the bottom respectively. The
experimental results showed a significant increase in temperature of LCZ
of SGSP when coal cinder was added in the bottom of the salt gradient
solar pond. The black plastic covered bottom also showed better
performance than the traditional untreated bottom.
6. Effect of Porous Materials placed at the bottom, study shows the
effect of porous material spread at the bottom of the tanks.
Experimented in three small plastic tanks simultaneously . The three sets
included a) a tank without any treatment on the bottom, b) a tank with
the pebble-covered bottom and c)a tank with coal cinder in the bottom .
The tanks were compared for 20 days. The porosity of the zone made by
the mixture of salt water and coal cinder was 50% and that of zone made
by the mixture of pebble and salt water was 32%.It was observed that
every morning the temperature of the LCZ was near to the atmospheric
temperature for all the cases . In the afternoon the temperature was
found to be maximum for the tank with coal cinder covered bottom.
7.Effect of Polyethene Film placed between NCZ and LCZ A polyethene
film having a thickness of 100 µm was placed between LCZ and NCZ . The
film being impervious would prevent diffusion between LCZ and NCZ and
thus maintain a salinity gradient for a longer duration. It was observed
that the temperature of the LCZ i.e. heat storage zone was considerably
higher for the solar pond with polyethene film just above LCZ as
compared with the case having polyethene film. The efficiency of the
solar pond with polyethene film above LCZ was found to be 69% while
that for the conventional solar pond was about 52%. The rate of rising of
the temperature of LCZ, i.e. heat storage zone, was also considerably
higher for the solar pond with separating polyethene film as compared
with the solar pond without any polyethene film.
8. Effect of Covering the Top Surface of the Pond Evaporation is one of
the significant challenges in efficient working of solar ponds . A large
part of the heat is lost to the environment through evaporation. We
studied that with floating hemispheres, floating discs , and a continuous
cover over a solar pond. It was found that when a floating disc covers the
solar pond with 88% surface , the evaporation rate decreased from 4.8 to
2.5mm/day where as the temperature increased by 7 degree C, i.e. from
34 degree C to 43 degree C. The heat content also increased by 41MJ,
i.e. from 179 MJ to 220 MJ. Suppression of evaporation also resulted in a
reduction in the heat lost to the surroundings and increase in the heat
content of the LCZ, which improved the efficiency of the solar pond. This
also resulted in a reduction in heat loss from LCZ to NCZ and hence, a
higher temperature was obtained in LCZ and NCZ . Further , by
suppressing the evaporation in the solar pond, it can be operated in
locations where the availability of water is less.
9. Effect of Reflective Covers Folding cover having a reflective surface on
one side is an effective way to reduce heat loss from solar pond surface
during night time and capture a greater amount of solar radiations during
the daytime and thereby the efficiency of the solar pond was improved.
It was found that solar pond performance could be increased by about
25% by using reflective covers . The effect of the position of reflectors
was observed by carrying out the simulation in two different ways.
Firstly, the simulation was done for temperature variation in LCZ when
RHS reflector was placed at a constant angle of 89 degree whereas LHS
reflector position was gradually altered from 30degree to 80degree with
10degree intervals(angle is measured from the horizontal axis). The
minimum and maximum solar pond temperature were found when the
combination of angles was 80 degree –89 degree and 30 degree – 89
degree , respectively. In the second simulation, LHS reflector was fixed
at an angle of 300 and RHS reflector angle was altered from 20 degree to
80 degree with 10 degree intervals (angle is measured from the
horizontal axis). The minimum and the maximum solar pond temperature
was found when the combination of angles was 30degree –20degree and
30 degree–80 degree,respectively . The average deviation in temperature
of LCZ between the
solar pond with a cover during the night time only and the normal solar
pond without any cover was found to be 10 degree where as the average
deviation in temperature between the solar pond with a cover &
reflector and the normal solar pond without any cover & reflector was
found to be about 10 degree C . Thus the reflectors were found to play
an important role in the thermal performance of the solar pond.

Incident rays

Reflected rays
LHS RHS

UCZ
UCZ

NCZ
LCZ
 Low investment costs per installed collection area.
 Thermal storage is incorporated into the collector and is of very low
cost.
 Diffuse radiation (cloudy days) is fully used.
 Very large surfaces can be built thus large scale energy generation is
possible.
 Expensive cleaning of large collector surfaces in dusty areas is avoided
 There are some simple and promising ways in which the performance of
an SG Solar Pond can be enhanced. Some of the common, prominent and
easy to implement methods have been highlighted in this paper. The
methods discussed in this paper are, 1) Adding coal cinder in the bottom
of the solar pond to improve the absorptivity of solar radiations in LCZ,
2) Use of porous material at the bottom of the solar pond, 3) Use of
polyethene film between NCZ and LCZ to prevent diffusion of salt from
one layer to another and thus maintaining the salt gradient in the pond
and preventing natural convection between NCZ and LCZ due to presence
of a physical barrier, 4) Covering the top surface of the pond, partially or
fully, to prevent the loss of water and energy through evaporation, 5)
Use of covers and reflective surfaces to prevent evaporation during night
and to capture more solar radiations during the day, and 6) Use of
different Salts improving the temperature and storage of LCZ. All the
methods discussed above are simple and cost effective and have positive
impact on the performance of the solar ponds