Collection of Condensate Water: Global Potential and Water Quality Impacts
Type
Article
KAUST Department
Clean Combustion Research CenterPhysical Sciences and Engineering (PSE) Division
Water Desalination and Reuse Research Center (WDRC)
Mechanical Engineering Program
Chemical Kinetics & Laser Sensors Laboratory
Date
2012-12-28Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Water is a valuable resource throughout the world, especially in hot, dry climates and regions experiencing significant population growth. Supplies of fresh water are complicated by the economic and political conditions in many of these regions. Technologies that can supply fresh water at a reduced cost are therefore becoming increasingly important and the impact of such technologies can be substantial. This paper considers the collection of condensate water from large air conditioning units as a possible method to alleviate water scarcity issues. Using the results of a climate model that tested data collected from 2000 to 2010, we have identified areas in the world with the greatest collection potential. We gave special consideration to areas with known water scarcities, including the coastal regions of the Arabian Peninsula, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. We found that the quality of the collected water is an important criterion in determining the potential uses for this water. Condensate water samples were collected from a few locations in Saudi Arabia and detailed characterizations were conducted to determine the quality of this water. We found that the quality of condensate water collected from various locations and types of air conditioners was very high with conductivities reaching as low as 18 μS/cm and turbidities of 0. 041 NTU. The quality of the collected condensate was close to that of distilled water and, with low-cost polishing treatments, such as ion exchange resins and electrochemical processes, the condensate quality could easily reach that of potable water. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.Publisher
Springer NatureJournal
Water Resources ManagementISSN
09204741Handle URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/562473Scopus Count
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Emerging investigator series: the rise of nano-enabled photothermal materials for water evaporation and clean water production by sunlight(Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), 2018-04-05)Solar driven water evaporation and distillation is an ancient technology, but has been rejuvenated by nano-enabled photothermal materials in the past 4 years. The nano-enabled state-of-the-art photothermal materials are able to harvest a full solar spectrum and convert it to heat with extremely high efficiency. Moreover, photothermal structures with heat loss management have evolved in parallel. These together have led to the steadily and significantly improved energy efficiency of solar evaporation and distillation in the past 4 years. Some unprecedented clean water production rates have been reported in small-scale and fully solar-driven devices. This frontier presents a timely and systematic review of the impressive developments in photothermal nanomaterial discovery, selection, optimization, and photothermal structural designs along with their applications especially in clean water production. The current challenges and future perspectives are provided. This article helps inspire more research efforts from environmental nano communities to push forward practical solar-driven clean water production.
-
Core-satellite populations and seasonality of water meter biofilms in a metropolitan drinking water distribution system(Nature Publishing Group, 2015-08-07)© 2015 International Society for Microbial Ecology Drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) harbor the microorganisms in biofilms and suspended communities, yet the diversity and spatiotemporal distribution have been studied mainly in the suspended communities. This study examined the diversity of biofilms in an urban DWDS, its relationship with suspended communities and its dynamics. The studied DWDS in Urbana, Illinois received conventionally treated and disinfected water sourced from the groundwater. Over a 2-year span, biomass were sampled from household water meters (n=213) and tap water (n=20) to represent biofilm and suspended communities, respectively. A positive correlation between operational taxonomic unit (OTU) abundance and occupancy was observed. Examined under a ‘core-satellite’ model, the biofilm community comprised 31 core populations that encompassed 76.7% of total 16 S rRNA gene pyrosequences. The biofilm communities shared with the suspended community highly abundant and prevalent OTUs, which related to methano-/methylotrophs (i.e., Methylophilaceae and Methylococcaceae) and aerobic heterotrophs (Sphingomonadaceae and Comamonadaceae), yet differed by specific core populations and lower diversity and evenness. Multivariate tests indicated seasonality as the main contributor to community structure variation. This pattern was resilient to annual change and correlated to the cyclic fluctuations of core populations. The findings of a distinctive biofilm community assemblage and methano-/methyltrophic primary production provide critical insights for developing more targeted water quality monitoring programs and treatment strategies for groundwater-sourced drinking water systems.The ISME Journal advance online publication, 7 August 2015; doi:10.1038/ismej.2015.136.
-
Atmospheric Water Harvesting by an Anhydrate Salt and Its Release by a Photothermal Process Towards Sustainable Potable Water Production in Arid Regions(2018-11)Only 2.5% of the water on Earth is fresh water and only less than 1% is accessible to human consumption. Landlocked and desert communities and communities that are not wealthy enough to provide clean drinking water via conventional water treatment technologies are facing severe water shortages and tend to rely on long distance transportation to supply fresh water for their daily use. As a lot of the water-scarce countries have abundant annual solar irradiation and relatively high humidity, this project proposes a technology that harvests water from ambient air using an anhydrate salt and releases it for collection using sunlight. This technology is designed to be potentially deployed in night-day cycles, as the humidity at night is at its peak, and solar irradiation during the day is also at its peak. In this work, a mesoporous silica powder filled with CuCl2 and coated with carbon nanotubes is used. The water capture performance of this material was investigated with different relative humidity environments. Furthermore, the powder agglomeration sizes of this material were also investigated for each relative humidity environment. Water release was investigated under 1 kW/m2 simulated solar light in an in-lab ~60% relative humidity environment. The results show that this mesoporous material was able to capture water at 12% relative humidity conditions, low enough to capture water from the air in the Sahara Desert. At relative humidity of 15% and 35%, the material was able to absorb 0.12 and 0.25 kg/kg of water, respectively, within 100 minutes, which indicates its fast water harvesting kinetics. A fully hydrated sample released 0.26 kg/kg of water in almost half an hour under 1 kW/m2 simulated sunlight. This project sheds more light on utilizing the atmosphere as an alternative water source.
