Computational Method and Design of a Packed Bed Diffusion Tower for the Desalination of Seawater

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Klausner ◽  
Mohamed Y. Darwish ◽  
Renwei Mei

In a recent study, Klausner et al. [1] have described a diffusion driven process for desalinating seawater at low temperatures. The main advantage of the diffusion driven desalination (DDD) process is that low thermodynamic availability waste heat may be used to drive the process. When low pressure condensing steam from a 100 MW power plant supplies the heat to drive the DDD process, a fresh water production rate of 20 million gallons per day is feasible. This paper describes the computational procedure used to size the diffusion tower for a specified throughput.

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Abutayeh ◽  
D. Yogi Goswami

Experimental simulations of a sustainable desalination process have been carried out using a pilot unit. Experiments were conducted at analogous conditions to simplify design evaluation but with different values of the controlling variables to enhance analysis and modeling. The proposed desalination process, which employs solar heating and passive vacuum generation, has been theoretically simulated in earlier work. It entails flowing seawater through a condenser to preheat it and then through a heater before flashing it in a vacuumed evaporator connected to the condenser where the flashed hot vapor is condensed by the incoming cold seawater forming fresh water. All experiments were run for the same period of time starting at the same initial vacuum. Experiments were carried out at different seawater flow rates and different flash temperatures. In addition, each experiment was duplicated three times to validate its outcome. Flashing seawater at higher temperatures increases vaporization and fresh water production rate. In addition, the accumulating noncondensable gases that are slowly eroding the vacuum will decrease the overall vaporization with time, which reduces the production rate of fresh water.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Moulane ◽  
Emmanuel Jehin ◽  
Francisco José Pozuelos ◽  
Jean Manfroid ◽  
Zouhair Benkhaldoun ◽  
...  

<p>Long Period Comets (LPCs) have orbital periods longer than 200 years, perturbed from their resting place in the Oort cloud. Such gravitational influences may send these icy bodies on a path towards the center of the Solar system in highly elliptical orbits. In this work, we present the activity and composition evolution of several LPCs observed with both TRAPPIST telescopes (TS and TN) during the period of 2019-2020. These comets include: C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS), C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto), C/2018 W2 (Africano), and disintegrated comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS). We monitored the OH, NH, CN, C<sub>2</sub> and C<sub>3</sub> production rates evolution and their chemical mixing ratios with respect to their distances to the Sun as well as the dust production rate proxy (A(0)fp) during the journey of these comets into the inner Solar system.</p> <p><strong>C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS)</strong> is a very bright comet which was discovered on October 2, 2017 when it was 9.20 au from the Sun. We started observing this comet with TS at the beginning of August 2019 when it was at 3.70 au. The comet made the closest approach to the Earth on December 28, 2019 at a distance of 1.52 au and it passed the perihelion on May 4, 2020 at 1.61 au. The water production rate of the comet reached a maximum of (4,27±0,12)10<sup>28 </sup>molecules/s and its dust production rate (A(0)fp(RC)) also reached the peak of 5110±25 cm on January 26, 2020, when the comet was at 2.08 au from the Sun (-100 days pre-perihelion). At the time of writing, we still monitoring the activity of the comet with TN at heliocentric distance of 1.70 au. Our observations show that C/2017 T2 is a normal LPC.</p> <p><strong>C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto)</strong> is a nearly parabolic comet with a retrograde orbit discovered on December 18, 2018 by Japanese amateur astronomer Masayuki Iwamoto. We monitored the activity and composition of Iwamoto with both TN and TS telescopes from January to March 2019. The comet reached its maximum activity on January 29, 2019 when it was at 1.29 au from the Sun (-8 days pre-perihelion) with Q(H<sub>2</sub>O)=(1,68±0,05)10<sup>28 </sup>molecules/s and A(0)fp(RC)= 92±5 cm. These measurements show that it was a dust-poor comet compared to the typical LPCs.</p> <p><strong>C/2018 W2 (Africano) </strong>was discovered on November 27, 2018 at Mount Lemmon Survey with a visual magnitude of 20. The comet reached its perihelion on September 6, 2019 when it was at 1.45 au from the Sun. We monitored the comet from July 2019 (r<sub>h</sub>=1.71 au) to January 2020 (r<sub>h</sub>=2.18 au) with both TN and TS telescopes. The comet reached its maximum activity on September 21, 15 days post-perihelion (r<sub>h</sub>=1.47 au) with Q(H<sub>2</sub>O)=(0,40±0,03)10<sup>28 </sup>molecules/s.</p> <p><strong>C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)</strong> is a comet with a nearly parabolic orbit discovered on December 18, 2019 by the ATLAS survey. We started to follow its activity and composition with broad- and narrow-band filters with the TN telescope on February 22, 2019 when it was at 1.32 au from the Sun until May 3, 2020 when the comet was at a heliocentric distance of 0.90 au inbound. The comet activity reached a maximum on March 22 (r<sub>h</sub>=1.65 au) 70 days before perihelion. At that time, the water-production rate reached (1,53±0,04)10<sup>28 </sup>molecules/s and the A(0)fp reached (1096±14) cm in the red filter. After that, the comet began to fade and disintegrated into several fragments.</p>


Author(s):  
Jameel R. Khan ◽  
James F. Klausner ◽  
Donald P. Ziegler ◽  
Srinivas S. Garimella

The diffusion driven desalination (DDD) process has been previously introduced as a process for distilling water using low-grade waste heat. Here, a configuration of the DDD process is introduced for simultaneously distilling water and scrubbing sulfur dioxide (SO2) out of heated air streams, which is also known as flue gas desulfurization (FGD). This novel DDD/FGD process utilizes the low-grade waste heat carried in industrial discharge air streams. There are many applications, where the industrial air discharge also contains SO2, and in order to utilize the waste heat for the DDD process, the SO2 must be scrubbed out of the air stream. The two major components of the DDD process are the diffusion tower and the direct contact condenser. In the present work, a thermal fluid transport model for the DDD/FGD process, that includes SO2 scrubbing, is developed. It is an extension of the heat and mass transport model previously reported for the DDD process. An existing laboratory scale DDD facility was modified and tested with SO2 in the air stream and with seawater as the feed water to the diffusion tower. The experimental investigation has been completed to evaluate the fresh water production and SO2 scrubbing potential for the DDD/FGD process. The experimental results compare favorably with the model predictions. Chemical analysis on the condenser water demonstrates the capability of the DDD/FGD process to produce high quality fresh water using seawater as the input feed water to the process.


Author(s):  
Kwangkook Jeong

A section to delineate ‘waste heat recovery’ has been written to contribute for the ASME Power Plant Cooling Specification/Decision-making Guide to be published in 2013. This paper informs tentative contents for the section on how to beneficially apply waste heat and water recovery technology into power plants. This paper describes waste heat recovery in power plant, current/innovative technologies, specifications, case study, combined cycle, thermal benefits, effects on system efficiency, economic and exergetic benefits. It also outlines water recovery technologies, benefits in fresh water consumptions, reducing acids emission, additional cooling effects, economic analysis and critical considerations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Guangfu Cao ◽  
Qingfen Ma ◽  
Jingru Li ◽  
Shenghui Wang ◽  
Chengpeng Wang ◽  
...  

A Bubbling and Vacuum-enhanced direct contact membrane distillation (BVDCMD) is proposed to improve the water production rate of the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD-)based seawater desalination process. Its heat and mass transfer mechanism are theoretically analyzed, and a CFD model is established, which is verified by the published data. Four types of the noncondensable gas, “O2,” “air,” “N2,” and “H2,” are adopted as the bubbling gas, and their process enhancements under different pressure of permeate side, temperature, and NaCl concentration of feed side and flow velocities are investigated. The results show that the permeate flux increased remarkably with the decrease in the viscosity of the bubbling gas, and hence, “H2” is the best option for the bubbling gas, with the permeate flux being enhanced by 144.11% and the effective heat consumption being increased by 20.81% on average. The effective water production rate of BVDCMD is predicted to be 42.38% more than that of DCMD, proving its feasibility in the seawater desalination.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (41) ◽  
pp. 21771-21779
Author(s):  
Jiaxiang Ma ◽  
Yu Han ◽  
Ying Xu ◽  
Tao Zhang ◽  
Jingjing Zhang ◽  
...  

An integrated photo-electro-thermal evaporation system uses a simple preparation process successfully achieves the improvement of water production rate in the day and continuous water evaporation at night.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document