scholarly journals A novel internal heat recycling concept for reducing energy consumption and increasing flux through three-stage air-gap–water-gap membrane distillation system

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 2858-2874
Author(s):  
Mostafa Abd El-Rady Abu-Zeid ◽  
Xiaolong Lu ◽  
Shaozhe Zhang

Abstract The low flux and high energy consumption problems of the conventional three-stage air-gap membrane distillation (AG-AG-AG)MD system caused by the low temperature difference between hot and cold feed at both sides of the membrane and high boundary layer thickness were solved successfully by replacing one of the three stages of air gaps by a water gap. The novel three-stage air-gap–water-gap membrane distillation (AG-AG-WG)MD system reduced energy consumption and increased flux due to efficient internal heat recycling by virtue of a water-gap module. Heat and mass transfer in novel and conventional three-stage systems were analyzed theoretically. Under a feed temperature of 45 °C, flow rate of 20 l/h, cooling temperature of 20 °C, and concentration of 340 ppm, the (AG-AG-WG)MD promoted flux by 17.59% and 211.69%, and gained output ratio (GOR) by 60.57% and 204.33% compared with two-stage (AG-WG)MD and one-stage AGMD, respectively. This work demonstrated the important role of a water gap in changing the heat and mass transfer where convection heat transfer across the water gap is faster by 24.17 times than conduction heat transfer through the air gap. The increase in flux and GOR economized the heating energy and decreased waste heat input into the system. Additionally, the number of MD stages could increase the achieving of a high flux with operation stability.

Author(s):  
Seyyed Ali Hedayat Mofidi ◽  
Kent S. Udell

Intermittency of sustainable energy or waste heat availability calls for energy storage systems such as thermal batteries. Thermo-chemical batteries are particularly appealing for energy storage applications due to their high energy densities and ability to store thermal energy as chemical energy for long periods of time without any energy loss. Thermo-chemical batteries based on a reversible solid-gas (MgCl2 - NH3) reactions and NH3 liquid-gas phase change are of specific interest since the kinetics of absorption are fast and the heat transfer rates for liquid — vapor phase change are high. Thus, a thermo-chemical battery based on reversible reaction between magnesium chloride and ammonia was studied. Experimental studies were conducted on a reactor in which temperature profiles within the solid matrix and pressure and flow rates of gas were obtained during charging processes. A numerical model based on heat and mass transfer within the salt and salt-gas reactions was developed to simulate the absorption processes within the solid matrix and the results were compared with experimental data. The studies were used to determine dominant heat and mass transfer processes within the salt. It is shown that for high permeability materials, heat transfer is the dominant factor in determining reaction rates. However increasing thermal conductivity might decrease permeability and reduce reaction rates. The effect of constraining mass flow rate on the temperature and reaction propagation is also studied. These results show that optimized heat and mass transfer within the solid-gas reactor will lead to improved performance for heating and air conditioning applications.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raj Nandkeolyar ◽  
Peri K. Kameswaran ◽  
Sachin Shaw ◽  
Precious Sibanda

We investigated heat and mass transfer on water based nanofluid due to the combined effects of homogeneous–heterogeneous reactions, an external magnetic field and internal heat generation. The flow is generated by the movement of a linearly stretched surface, and the nanofluid contains nanoparticles of copper and gold. Exact solutions of the transformed model equations were obtained in terms of hypergeometric functions. To gain more insights regarding subtle impact of fluid and material parameters on the heat and mass transfer characteristics, and the fluid properties, the equations were further solved numerically using the matlab bvp4c solver. The similarities and differences in the behavior, including the heat and mass transfer characteristics, of the copper–water and gold–water nanofluids with respect to changes in the flow parameters were investigated. Finally, we obtained the numerical values of the skin friction and heat transfer coefficients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1678-1691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mostafa Abd El-Rady Abu-Zeid ◽  
Gamal ElMasry

Abstract Two rectangular modules with a total interior membrane surface area of 13.53 m2 were consecutively combined to evaluate the use of heat recovery in an air-gap membrane distillation (AGMD) system. Several operating inlet parameters including feed water temperature, mass water flow rate and salinity were investigated. The experimental results revealed that the performance of the system was improved by virtue of efficient heat recovery resulting from combining two AGMD membrane modules in series. Under optimal inlet operating parameters of cooling water temperature of 20 °C, salinity of 0.05% and flow rate of 3 l/min, the system productivity (Pp) increased up to 192.9%, 179.3%, 176.5% and 179.2%, and the thermal efficiency (ηth) by 261.5%, 232.6%, 239.4% and 227.3% at feed water temperatures of 45 °C, 55 °C, 65 °C and 75 °C, respectively. Concurrently, the specific waste heat input (Ew.h.i) decreased by 6.7%, 4.7%, 5.6% and 2.7% due to the efficient heat recovery. The results confirmed that heat recovery is an important factor affecting the AGMD system that could be improved by designing one of the two AGMD modules with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hollow fibers with a flow length shorter than the other one having a salt rejection rate of 99%.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nazia Afrin

Heat transfer describes the exchange of thermal energy, between physical systems depending on the temperature and pressure, by dissipating heat. The fundamental modes of heat transfer are conduction or diffusion, convection and radiation. Heat and mass transfer are kinetic processes that may occur and be studied separately or jointly. Studying them apart is simpler, but both processes are modeled by similar mathematical equation in the case of diffusion and convection. There are complex problems where heat and mass transfer processes are combined with chemical reactions, as in combustion. The resulting behavior of heat transport in microscale will be very different from macroscale heat transfer based on the averages taken over hundreds of thousands of grains (in space) and collision (in time). From the microscopic point of view, the process of heat transport is governed by phonon-electron interaction in metallic films and by phonon scattering in dielectric films, insulators and semi-conductors. For extremely heated surfaces by high energy laser pulse, it is very difficult to measure temperature of flux at the heated surface because of the unendurable capacity of the conventional sensors. Laser is the tool of choice when drill holes ranging in diameter from several millimeters to less than one micro-meter. Instead of having advanced melting and resolidification modeling process recently, the inherent uncertainties of the input parameters can directly cause unstable characteristics of the output results which means the parametric uncertainties may influence the characteristics of the phase change processes (melting and resolidification) which will affect the predictions of interfacial properties i.e., temperature, velocity and mainly the location of solid-liquid interface. All of those processes can be considered under high energy laser interaction with materials.


2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyyed Ali Hedayat Mofidi ◽  
Kent S. Udell

Intermittency of sustainable energy or waste heat availability calls for energy storage systems such as thermal batteries. Thermochemical batteries based on a reversible solid–gas (MgCl2–NH3) reactions and NH3 liquid–gas phase change are of specific interest since the kinetics of absorption are fast and the heat transfer rates for liquid–vapor phase change are high. Thus, a thermochemical battery based on reversible reaction between magnesium chloride and ammonia was studied. Two-dimensional experimental studies were conducted on a reactor in which temperature profiles within the solid matrix and pressure and flow rates of gas were obtained during discharging processes. A numerical model based on heat and mass transfer within the salt and salt–gas reactions was developed to simulate the NH3 absorption processes within the solid matrix, and the results were compared with experimental data to determine dominant heat and mass transfer processes within the salt. It is shown that for high permeability salt beds, the reactor uniformly adsorbs gaseous ammonia until the bed reaches the equilibrium temperature, then adsorbs gas near the cooled boundaries as the reaction front moves inward. In that mode, the heat transfer is the dominant factor in determining reaction rates.


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