Project BackgroundThe availability of safe drinking water is becoming an increasingly important issue. Expanding populations, enhanced living standards and decreased availability of fresh water has catalyzed much research in the area of obtaining potable water. Since a large majority of the earth’s water supply is salt water, desalination methods such as reverse osmosis and electrodialysis have been developed. In addition to the practical limitation of small-scale usage, these methods are energy demanding, and are generally coupled to fossil-fuel sources. A potentially feasible alternative is solar powered desalination with a humidification-dehumidification cycle. Faculty from the chemical engineering department at Illinois Institute of Technology have been involved in research in this area. “Solar desalination with a humidification-dehumidification cycle: performance of the unit (Desalination 120 (1998) 273-280),” co-authored by Said Al-Hallaj serves as a starting point for this project. The following is an approximate schematic for the system:
Figure 1. Desalination unit schematic. |
