About the Project
Desalination and water management technology is very important in many countries in the world. Also, many countries have a relatively high solar intensity all-round the year. This research is in water desalination using low grade energy; such as solar heat. The basic idea is to heat air by using solar energy, then the heated air flows and humidifies by the contact with seawater. After loading the air flow by a large amount of water vapor, the water content can be easily recovered by cooling the humid air in dehumidifier equipment. The use of multistage humidification helps to load the air with high vapor content and volume flow rate of the circulating air. So, the proposed unit consists of solar collector, humidifiers, and dehumidifiers. The project involves: a complete design for multi-stage humidification with inter-heating and dehumidification unit; deduction of the most effective parameters that affect the operating conditions; optimization of the process that help in predicting the optimum operating conditions that gives maximum performance ratio with minimum operating cost.
References
1. Hermosillo, J.-J., Arancibia-Bulnes, C. & Estrada, C., 2012. Water desalination by air humidification: Mathematical model and experimental study. Solar Energy, Volume 86, p. 1070–1076
2. Mehrgoo, M. & Amidpour, M., 2012. Constructal design and optimization of a direct contact humidification–dehumidification desalination unit. Desalination, Volume 293, p. 69–77
3. Kaunga, D.L., Patel, R. & Mujtaba, I.M., 2019. Modeling and Simulation of Multistage Humidification and Dehumidification Desalination Plant Using Solar Energy, 3rd International Conference on Functional Materials and Chemical Engineering, 15-17 December 2019, Bangkok, Thailand