Experimental Study on the Desalination System Using Humidification-Dehumidification Technology

Abstract

In this paper, an experimental work studies the principal operating parameters of a proposed desalination process using air humidification-dehumidification method. The major objective of this work is to determine the humid air behavior through the desalination system. Different operating conditions including the effect of the water temperature at the entry to the humidifier, the ratio of the mass of water to the air, the air/water flow rate, and cooling water at entry the dehumidifier on the desalination performance were studied. The results show that the freshwater increases with increasing the water temperature at the inlet of the humidifier, the ratio of the mass of water to air, and cooling water flow rate in the dehumidifier. Cooling water outlet temperature at the condenser increases with increasing the water temperature at humidifier inlet. Also, it decreases as increasing cooling water flow rate while the ratio of the mass of water to air achieves the highest productivity and gained output ratio (GOR). The achieved mass ratio (MR) is 4.5 and the mass flow rate of air is 0.8 kg/min.