Humidification-Dehumidification Process for Brackish Water Desalination

Abstract

The seawater desalination could be the promising technique toresolvethe growingdemandsforfreshwater. The Humidification Dehumidification (HDH) desalination method is a sustainable and economical method of extracting freshwater from the sea water.  This research work emphases on the production of drinkable freshwater through the heating desalination process using Humidification Dehumidification (HDH) desalination method. The experiments were performed on HDH unit.  The performance of HDH unit was influenced by several variables such as temperature, air flow rate and mass flow rate. The experimental results show that at a particular heat input, the gained output ratio (GOR) increases with an increase in relative humidity (RH) due to high-moisture content in the air. The production rate of freshwater has drastically increased with an increase in RH as well as heat input to seawater, inlet air flow rate and seawater flow rate. The recovery rate (RR) stayed almost constant for any increase in the sea water flow rate. It was expected that HDH could be a best alternate for existing desalination techniques due to its simple construction and low operating cost.