Water Desalination Using a New Humidification-Dehumidification (HDH) Technology

Abstract The high global population rate has driven the demand for fresh water to increase rapidly. However, the scarcity of fresh water is creating an escalating pressure on the global community to find other alternative water resources such as wastewater reuse and desalination. Desalination is an effective technique for providing fresh water supply. However, most of current desalination technologies consume large amount of energy. Hence, the cost of fresh water produced is strongly depends on the cost of energy used in the desalination processes. For this purpose, a new water desalination system has been developed through theintegration of a thermal pump system, wetting technology and dehumidification. Power consumption in water desalination has been reduced by controlling water and air flow rates in the new system. The results showed that 1.71 kg/h of fresh water could be produced using only 0.726 kWh which is an important achievement in reducing the energy consumed in the water desalination in small capacity units.