Design and experimental study of systems for the regeneration of aqueous CaCl2 solutions using solar energy

Abstract

Desiccants are capable of extracting or releasing water vapor from the air, in relatively large quantities. It is important from the economic point of view the recovery by thermal regeneration of these desiccants. Therefore, the development of a technique for the regeneration of this type of substance is of technical and economic interest. For this reason, in the present work, two equipments for the regeneration of calcium chloride in aqueous solutions were designed, built and experimented with, one with a flat surface and the other with a stepped surface assisted by solar energy as a heating medium. This process was monitored through various temperature and humidity sensors to know the operating conditions inside the regenerators, as well as the environmental conditions throughout the experiments through a climatic and solarimetric station. During the study it was observed that the materials and dimensioning of both equipment are adequate. When comparing the temperatures and amount of water evaporated during the test period, a better performance was obtained in the regenerator with an inclined plane, than in the stepped type, which was corroborated by evaluating the relative density of the solutions.