Optimization of Production Drinking Water from Atmospheric Air Through Cooling Surface Water Harvesting Machine
Author(s):
Hazim E Radhi, Rafid M. Hannun, Hashim Hussein
Affiliation(s):
Research Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Thi-Qar, Nasiriya, Iraq
Corresponding Author Email: [email protected][email protected][email protected]
This is an open access journal distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Surface cooling water harvesting from air represents an alternative way to provide new potable water sources. An 800-watt Extraction Water Machine (EWM) is fabricated and operates on the well-known “vapor compression cycle” to extract water from the air in an area that has low relative humidity. Three options have been studied experimentally: dehumidification directly from atmospheric air with dry mode (option I); humidification-dehumidification with dry mode (option II); humidification-dehumidification with cooling mode (option III) during different days of May in Nasiriya city, Iraq. As temperature and relative humidity are the two main factors that control condensation and the amount of condensate, in addition to cooling capacity, therefore the aim of the study to determine the optimum temperature and relative humidity values at which the maximum amount of condensed water is obtained and the operation mode. mathematical models for hourly condensation rate was formulated by doing quadratic regression for experimental results and use it in non dominated sorting genetic algorithm NSGA-II and modeFRONTIER software to access solutions near the interface of the Pareto for the optimal operation of EWM to maximize water harvesting for each option. The results showed the ideal climatic conditions for optimal water production for each option. Whereas the optimal water production was 0.7622 L/h during climatic conditions 23 °C, 47 % RH in option I and 1.463 L/h at 33.6 °C and 65% RH in option II while was 1.672 L/h at 23.58 °C, 62 % RH per hour in option III It’s clear to notice that the third operating strategy gave the best results.