Open AccessInvestigation of Water Vapour Harvesting Unit Using Solar Energy
Author(s) -
Saja A. Hussein,
Abdul Hadi N. Khalifa,
Johain J. Faraj
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/1105/1/012040
Subject(s) - desiccant , materials science , water vapor , volumetric flow rate , silica gel , pellets , adsorption , porosity , desorption , zeolite , chemical engineering , composite material , chemistry , thermodynamics , organic chemistry , engineering , physics , catalysis
water-harvesting unit is built and the effects of design parameters are studied experimentally and theoretically under Baghdad conditions (33. 3°N, 44.33° E). The unit consists of desiccant materials contained in many trays that enclosed in a metal container covered by a glass cover. The desiccant materials aim to adsorb the water vapor that associated with the air, an axial fan is used to blow the ambient air over the desiccant. The unit container is built from aluminum of 0.6 mm thickness; the dimensions of the container are 27 cm wide, 93cm length and 10 cm height. Two gets are installed in the unit for the inlet and outlet of air. The front face of the container is covered by a glass cover of 4 mm thickness. Different types of desiccant materials are used to adsorb the water vapour from the air, namely; silica gel powder, silica gel pellets, zeolite 13X, zeolite 3A and MCM-41 Nano powder. The effect of the mass flow rate of air over the desiccant materials and the types of desiccant material on the amount of freshwater production is studied in this work. Tóth model is used to build a mathematical of the adsorption/desorption process. The mathematical model aims to cover the performance of the water-harvesting unit around the year. The results show that the maximum daily production of the water-harvesting unit using MCM-41 is 0.5 kgw/kgads when the mass flow rate of air is 14 kg/hr, as the mass flow rate of air increases more than 14 kg/hr the daily water production reduces. The use of other desiccant materials like Zeolites and silica gels shows encourage results in the daily production of water of less than 0.1 kgw/kgads. The mathematical modelling of the water-harvesting unit shows the maximum water production about 0.55 kgw/kgads in December. The error between the experimental and mathematical models for daily water production is in the range of 12.5 to 17.8% for the desiccant materials used in this work.