Air Humidification By Contact With Geothermal Water In Packed Column Humidifier: A Theoretical And Experimental Study

Adel Oueslati^1,2*, Adel Megriche²

¹Higher Institute of Technological studies of Zaghouan, University of Technological studies of Tunis, (TUNISIA)
²Université de Tunis El Manar, Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Laboratoire de Chimie Minérale Appliquée (LR19ES02),
Campus Universitaire Farhat Hached, 2092, Tunis, (TUNISIA)

PAGE NO: 157-164

ABSTRACT – DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47204/EMSR.2.2.2021.157-164

Air humidification is the main operation for desalination of water by humidification-dehumidification process. The process has several attractive features when the air and water flows are done simultaneously by the same device called airlift pump. So, these features include reliability, low maintenance cost, and energy needs for fluid circulation (low maintenance costs and energy requirements for the circulation of fluids. This paper evaluates the characteristics of the air humidification process as a function of operating conditions. A small capacity experimental system is made and used to evaluate the process characteristics as a function of the air flow rates, the submersion ratio, the temperature of the geothermal water. The experimental system includes an airlift packed column humidifier, a compressor as source of compressed air and a constant temperature geothermal water circulation tank. The humidification is found to depend strongly on the hot water temperature. Also, the water evaporation is found to increase upon the increase the air flow rate and the decrease of the packing diameter particle. The submersion ratio has also an effect on the humidification efficiency. The measured air and water temperatures, air relative humidity and the fluids flow rates are used to calculate the mass transfer coefficients. The Measured data are in accordance with the results of the literature.