Abstract
The bubble column evaporator (BCE) process is a promising method for seawater desalination with improved evaporation efficiency. In this paper, for the first time, the enthalpy of water vaporization (ΔHv) in a helium sparged aqueous solution was measured and calculated using an energy balance equation for a BCE by applying an improved column design. A significant drop in the measured ΔHv values correlated with the observation of a larger weight loss of water vapor from the salt solution suggest that pre-heated helium inlet gases can facilitate the evaporation process, apparently by disrupting the hydrogen bonding among water molecule clusters, probably in the regions close to the surface of the rising hot bubbles. The increased evaporation efficiency of about 3.1 times with 75 °C heated helium inlet illustrates its potential for future seawater desalination because of its relatively low energy consumption compared with other commercial desalination methods and suggests that solar energy or waste vent gases could be used as suitable sources of thermal energy, and the helium carrier gas can be recycled during the condensation process to reduce the commercial cost.
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