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DOE OSTI · 1779104

Water desalination through the dewpoint evaporative system

Pandelidis, Demis·Cichon, Aleksandra·Pacak, Anna·Drag, Pawel·Drag, Marlena·Worek, William·Cetin, Sabri
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Abstract

This paper presents the first numerical analysis of a novel Dew Point Desalination unit (DPD), which utilizes the phenomenon of the evaporative cooling process to minimize energy consumption. The proposed solution is based on a modular structure, which allows it to obtain any required water production capacity. The analyses for various operational parameters and various climatic conditions are based on the numerical simulations conducted using a validated mathematical model. The system performance was described with different factors, including specific energy consumption (SEC) and daily water production rate respected to 1 m^3*s^-1 of passing air stream (DWP). It is shown that the DPD system can operate in almost every climate zone, and the desalinated water production consumes less than 1.5 kWh*m^-3 of electric energy It is noted the best performance of the DPD system is achieved in the semi-arid, desert and subtropical climate zones. In these climate zones, the 2-stage DPD system allows the production of desalinated water with an electric energy consumption SEC lower than 0.5 kWh*m^-3. The additional benefit of the DPD system is its modularity. The presented DPD system stands as a module, that can be multiplied as needed to achieve the desired size of the desalination plant.

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DesalinationDew point coolingIndirect evaporative coolingRenewable energy

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Pandelidis, Demis, Cichon, Aleksandra, Pacak, Anna, Drag, Pawel, Drag, Marlena, Worek, William, Cetin, Sabri. 2021-02-01. Water desalination through the dewpoint evaporative system. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2020.113757

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