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Study on icing evolution rule in process of liquid evaporation-freezing by humidity difference

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Abstract

Desalination by freezing is of great prospect due to its low energy consumption, little pollution, freedom of corrosion and ease of scaling. A novel freezing desalination method driven by humidity difference between air flow and liquid surface is proposed and verified in this paper. In order to reveal its mechanism, an unsteady-state thermodynamics model was established to simulate icing movement on liquid surface according to heat and mass balance. Effects of humidity difference, airflow velocity and mass diffusion coefficient on icing development were analyzed through theory analysis and experiments. It was found that the larger humidity difference and larger airflow velocity had evident effects on the liquid evaporation-freezing. Meanwhile, fast mass diffusion between mediums was also beneficial to this freezing process.

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Abbreviations

u :

Velocity along z-direction (m/s)

δ :

Boundary layer thickness (m)

D :

Mass diffusion coefficient (m2/s)

q :

Heat quantity (J)

S A :

Solidification heat of liquid (kJ/kg)

H A :

Latent heat of vaporization (kJ/kg)

M :

Entire evaporation amount (kg)

y :

y-direction

φ :

Absolute humidity (g/(kg dry air))

K :

Proportional coefficient

ρ :

Concentration (kg/m3)

B :

Cross section width of evaporation-freezing chamber (m)

G :

Length of evaporation-freezing chamber (m)

L :

Cross section height of evaporation-freezing chamber (m)

r :

Distance from the air–liquid interface to the center of airflow channel (m)

w :

Air-liquid interface

N :

Nth unit body

o :

Outlet

U :

Turbulent velocity (m/s)

C :

Concentration value of mainstream

Re :

Reynolds number

I :

Amount of ice (kg)

M NA :

Evaporation quantity of the liquid (kg)

τ :

Time (s)

N :

Unit body number

Z :

z-direction

F :

Ice body thickness (m)

f :

The distance of dendrite tip toxaxis (m)

V :

Volume (m3)

Nf :

Airflow mainstream concentration

i :

Inlet

ice :

Ice body

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Acknowledgments

The work was supported by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2014QNA74).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, Jiangsu, China

    Penghui Gao, Donghai Zhang & Guoqing Zhou

Authors
  1. Penghui Gao
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  2. Donghai Zhang
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  3. Guoqing Zhou
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Correspondence to Penghui Gao.

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Gao, P., Zhang, D. & Zhou, G. Study on icing evolution rule in process of liquid evaporation-freezing by humidity difference. Heat Mass Transfer 51, 1537–1547 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-015-1519-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-015-1519-1

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