Performance enhancement of a solar still using a V-groove solar air collector-experimental study with energy, exergy, enviroeconomic, and exergoeconomic analysis.

This paper intended to evaluate the performance of a new design of solar still integrated with a V-groove solar air collector. In this system, an air channel was placed under the basin to simultaneously raise the water temperature and the temperature difference between evaporation and condensation zones. The performance of this modified solar still was compared with a conventional one in terms of their productivity, cost of water production, energy, exergy, energy payback time, enviroeconomic, and exergoeconomic analysis. All the experiments were performed in the climatic conditions of Zanjan, Iran. Findings revealed that the freshwater produced in the modified system was 170% more than the traditional one. Moreover, the annual output energy and exergy of the modified still was 170% and 257% higher than the conventional one, respectively. The results also showed that integrating the solar air collector with solar still improved the energy and exergy parameters, energy payback time, and energy production factor 26, 67, 17, and 21% more than traditional solar still, respectively. Additionally, the modified solar still was found to be 40.6% more efficient than the conventional type in the Co2 mitigation. Furthermore, based on the experimental results, three characteristic equations were presented to predict the daily water production, efficiency, and Co2 mitigation of the conventional and modified solar stills based on the solar intensity and ambient temperature. Finally, a characteristic equation for instantaneous efficiency of the active still, which depends on climatic conditions and system performance parameters, was obtained.

An Experimental Study on the Performance Evaluation and Thermodynamic Modeling of a Thermoelectric Cooler Combined with Two Heatsinks.

The present study aims to investigate the performance of a one-stage thermoelectric cooler using mathematical and thermodynamic modeling and proposing a new correlation for performance evaluation of a thermoelectric cooler combined with two heatsinks. Validating the results of the proposed correlation, a series of experiments have been carried out on the same system. The system consists of a thermoelectric cooler and a heatsink on each side. Deriving the governing equations of the system, the effects of changing the voltage and the thermal resistance of the cold- and hot-side heatsink on cooling power, the cold-side temperature of thermoelectric, and the coefficient of performance of the system have been investigated. The results indicated that changes in voltage have a considerable effect on the performance of the system. Moreover, the maximum cooling power of the system takes place at the voltage of 14 V, which is the optimum voltage of the system. Furthermore, decreasing the thermal resistance of the hot-side heatsink leads to increasing the cooling power and the cold-side temperature of the thermoelectric cooler. On the other hand, increasing the thermal resistance of the cold-side heatsink leads to decreasing the cooling power of the system.

Fake/Bogus Conferences: Their Features and Some Subtle Ways to Differentiate Them from Real Ones.

The main objective of the present paper is to introduce some features of fake/bogus conferences and some viable approaches to differentiate them from the real ones. These fake/bogus conferences introduce themselves as international conferences, which are multidisciplinary and indexed in major scientific digital libraries. Furthermore, most of the fake/bogus conference holders offer publishing the accepted papers in ISI journals and use other techniques in their advertisement e-mails.

Online-Based Approaches to Identify Real Journals and Publishers from Hijacked Ones.

The aim of the present paper was to introduce some online-based approaches to evaluate scientific journals and publishers and to differentiate them from the hijacked ones, regardless of their disciplines. With the advent of open-access journals, many hijacked journals and publishers have deceitfully assumed the mantle of authenticity in order to take advantage of researchers and students. Although these hijacked journals and publishers can be identified through checking their advertisement techniques and their websites, these ways do not always result in their identification. There exist certain online-based approaches, such as using Master Journal List provided by Thomson Reuters, and Scopus database, and using the DOI of a paper, to certify the realness of a journal or publisher. It is indispensable that inexperienced students and researchers know these methods so as to identify hijacked journals and publishers with a higher level of probability.