Amman- 4 October 2020
Manar Ellauzi, a student from the Energy Engineering Department, The School of Natural Resources Engineering and Management (SNREM), at the German Jordanian University (GJU), under the supervision of Dr. Mohamad Khawaja, obtained private funding from Energy Engineering Enterprises (Chicago, IL, USA) to build a Salinity Gradient Solar Pond (SGSP) replica on the German Jordanian University’s main campus for her Graduation Project.
The tank, mimicking a pond, is located to the east outside of Building C. The tank consists of three layers, the bottom containing Dead Sea water, the middle containing incrementally diluted Dead Sea water, and the top containing fresh water. During the day, the water’s temperature in the tank increases and the heat in the bottom layer is trapped as it cannot diffuse into the middle layer while the top layer maintains atmospheric temperature.
This system acts as a solar-thermal energy storage that can be used in a plethora of applications when the heat is successfully extracted such as electricity generation, space heating, and water desalination. This type of system is unique to Jordan as it utilizes Dead Se water making it an attractive addition to the growing number of domestic renewable energy systems.