Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16

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Desalination

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Solar water desalination using an air bubble column humidifier

A. Khalil, S.A. El-Agouz ⁎, Y.A.F. El-Samadony, Ahmed Abdo
Mech. Power Eng. Department, Faculty of Eng., Tanta University, Egypt

H I G H L I G H T S

• Desalination using an air bubble column humidifier is investigated.

• Effect of water temperature and height, air flow rate and hole diameter is studied.
• At inlet water is 62 °C, productivity, efficiency and GOR are 21 kg, 63%, and 0.53.
• Air bubble column achieves higher performance than that conventional humidifier.
• Temperature difference along air column is less than 2.5 °C for all measurements.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An experimental study of a solar water desalination using an air bubble column humidifier is investigated. The
Received 18 April 2015 characteristics of the generated bubbles are modified by using a different sieve plate with different hole size.
Received in revised form 6 June 2015 The effect of water temperature, air flow rate, water height, and sieve's hole diameter on desalination perfor-
Accepted 13 June 2015
mance is studied. The results showed that the daily productivity, efficiency and gain output ratio are 21 kg,
Available online 23 June 2015
63%, and 0.53 respectively; at inlet water temperature is 62 °C. The change in the temperature difference along
Keywords:
the column is less than 2.5 °C for all measurements. The best performance is observed from sieve with 1 mm
Humidification–dehumidification hole diameter at which the outlet air from the bubble columns is always saturated. The air bubble column
Air bubbles achieves higher performance than that for the conventional humidifier.
Solar desalination, sieve plate © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction preliminary design study of a solar collector humidification–dehumidi-

Desalination can be achieved by many methods. Thermal method is
considered to be the simplest one. In this method, saline water is heated
in an evaporator and generates water vapor free of salts. The generated
vapor is condensed in a condenser then fresh water is collected. Water,
air, or both can be heated by conventional energy source or by renew-
able energy source such as solar energy.
The latter desalination process can be called solar air humidification–
dehumidification desalination process. The humidification–
dehumidification (HD) desalination process is one of the secondary
desalination processes. This system is very useful for places which
have low freshwater demand. The main advantages of this system
are; consume a small amount of energy and simplicity in both
plant layout and management.
Bourouni et al. [1] presented the technique of air humidification–
dehumidification (HD) process. The principle, technique and state of
the art of the HD process were presented. Gahin et al. [2] presented a
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Akhalileg@yahoo.com (A. Khalil), elagouz2011@yahoo.com
(S.A. El-Agouz), samadony25@yahoo.co.uk (Y.A.F. El-Samadony), eng.a_abdo@yahoo.com
(A. Abdo).
fication desalination unit. They studied different parameters affecting
the global performance of the unit. Also, they studied the performance
of the two most important components of the loop which are humidify-
ing and dehumidifying columns or stacks. Farid and Al-Hajaj [3] de-
signed and studied experimentally the performance of multi-effect
solar air humidification desalination unit. The unit had two different
loops; air closed loop and water open loop. The results showed that
the multi-effect humidification–dehumidification process, with forced
air circulation, was found suitable for water solar desalination. The
unit achieved a daily productivity of 12 l/m2/d, which was over three
times that for single-basin conventional solar still. Al-Hallaj et al. [4]
studied experimentally the indoor and outdoor performance of two de-
salination units based on air humidification desalination. The results
showed that water productivity was increased as the feeding water
flow rate was increased to an optimum value. Moreover, they concluded
that forced air circulation was effective in the unit performance at low
operating water temperatures. Ben-Bachaa et al. [5] studied experimen-
tally a solar multiple condensation evaporation cycle (SMCEC) desalina-
tion technique. The results showed that the pilot units produced as
much as 60% of daily water needed for irrigation. Dai et al. [6] conducted
experimentally a solar humidification and dehumidification desalina-
tion unit. The performance of the unit was strongly dependent on the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2015.06.010
0011-9164/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
8 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16
temperature and mass flow rate of the inlet salt water to the humidifier
and the process air mass flow rate, which was forced by a fan. The unit
thermal efficiency was above 80%. Garg et al. [7] studied experimentally
and theoretically multi-effect humidification/dehumidification solar
desalination system when air was circulated by natural convection.
The differences between the values of the experimental and theoretical
results were increased as the water temperature was increased due to
the energy losses in the humidifier. Nafey et al. [8,9] investigated theo-
retically and experimentally a solar humidification dehumidification
desalination unit under different environmental and operating condi-
tions. The productivity of the unit was strongly affected by the cooling
water flow rate, airflow rate, and total solar energy incident through
the daytime. Amer et al. [10] investigated experimentally and theoreti-
cally the effect of operating parameters on the characteristics of a
humidification–dehumidification desalination system. The system was
based on a closed cycle for the airstream and an open cycle for water.
The results showed that the maximum daily productivity was 5.8 l/h
at 2.8 kg/min water flow rate and 85 °C inlet water temperature.
Yanniotis and Xerodemas [11] studied experimentally the performance
of tubular spray humidifier and a pad humidifier in seawater desalina-
tion plants. The evaporation rate of the spray humidifier was approxi-
mately the same as 100 mm thickness pad humidifier. Also, the pad
humidifier with 300 mm thickness gave the highest evaporation rate
at high air to water flow rate ratios. Zhani [12] studied theoretically
and experimentally solar humidification–dehumidification desalination
unit. The results showed that the maximum GOR was obtained at 0.4 kg/s
inlet hot water flow rate. Vlachogiannis et al. [13] studied experimentally
and theoretically a novel desalination concept, combining between the
principles of air humidification–dehumidification and mechanical vapor
compression. Air was injected into the evaporation chamber through a
porous bottom wall and dispersed as small diameter bubbles.
Inaba et al. [14] studied experimentally heat and mass transfer of air
bubbles in a hot water layer. The results showed that the mean diameter
of generating air bubbles increased with an increase in the superficial air
flow velocity.
HUM Humidifier C.C
SWC Solar water collector SP
CV Control valve DEH
FM Flow meter TST
RH Relative humidity sensor TC
Fig. 1. Experimental set-up schematic diagram.
EL-Agouz and Abugderah [15] studied experimentally the humidifi-
cation process by air passing through seawater. The air was fed to the
evaporator chamber from 32 holes of 10 mm diameter located on the
surface area of a PVC pipe, which was submersed in the water of the
evaporator chamber. They found that the maximum vapor content
difference of the air was about 222 gmw/kga at 75 °C and exit relative
humidity of air was reached to 95%. Kabeel [16] studied experimentally
the performance of the liquid desiccant system during a dehumidifica-
tion–humidification process using an injected air through the liquid
desiccant solution (calcium chloride). The air was injected through a
series of homogeneous distribution. Holes in a vertical pipe El-Agouz
et al. [17] studied experimentally a single air bubbling humidification
desalination unit. They studied the influence of the electrically heated
water temperature, water level, and airflow rate on the desalination
performance. The productivity was slightly affected by water level and
the maximum productivity of the system reached to 8.22 kgw/h at
86 °C for water temperature and 14 kg/h for air flow rate.
Zhang et al. [18] studied experimentally operating factors that af-
fects bubbling humidification by using a single sieve plate. The result
showed that air relative humidity reached to 100%. Moreover, humidifi-
cation capacity was increased by about 80% when water temperature
was increased by 10 °C. Zhang et al. [19] studied experimentally the in-
fluence of working design parameters of solar bubbling humidification
desalination unit on its gain output ratio, electric power consumption,
and fresh water production cost. They found that gain output ratio
was increased as the humidification temperature was increased, while
electrical power consumption decreased.
Emily and John [20] experimentally studied the heat flux and
effectiveness of a bubble column dehumidifier. It was found that
the effectiveness was decreased while the heat flux was increased
with decreasing coil area and increasing the temperature and air
flow rate. Ghazal et al. [21] examined air bubble regeneration on the
performance of a solar still using humidification–dehumidification desali-
nation (HDD) process. The results showed that the exit air from the hu-
midification process was fully saturated. The effectiveness of the solar
Cooling coils PCV Pressure control valve
Sieve plate P Pump
Dehumidifier PG Pressure gauge
Thermal storage tank GL Graduate level
Thermocouple FWT Fresh water tank
 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16 9

(a) Photograph and dimensional of the humidifier

(b) Photograph of the experimental set-up

Fig. 2. Photographs of the humidifier and the experimental set-up.

humidifier and the mass and heat transfer were upgraded by air bubbles
regeneration.
Sharqawy and Liu [22] studied experimentally the effect of the air
pressure in bubble column dehumidifier dehumidification process, for
absolute pressures in the range of 1–2 bar, superficial velocity range of
2–18 cm/s, and column height range of 3–7 cm. It was found that the
total heat transfer rate was increased with the superficial velocity and
pressure while effectiveness was increased with the superficial velocity
and was decreased with pressure. The column height was slightly af-
fected on the heat transfer and the effectiveness.
Air bubble columns are suitable for humidification and dehumidifi-
cation. Its great interface area, allows a great value of heat and mass
transfer rate consequently improves productivity and efficiency. There-
fore, the present work presents an experimental investigation of the use
air bubble column humidifier for the solar water desalination system.
The saline water, which is working in a closed loop, is heated by an
evacuated tube solar collector as an energy source in order to save elec-
trical energy. Air working in an open loop is injected into the evapora-
tion chamber from the bottom through sieve plates with 1200 holes
and 1, 3, and 5 mm diameter. The characteristics of generating bubbles
are changed by using the different hole diameter of sieve plates. The
study includes the effect of water temperature and level, air flow rate,
and orifice diameter of the sieve plate on the unit performance.
2. Experimental setup and instrumentation
2.1. Experimental setup
Fig. 1 presented a schematic diagram of the experiment setup. The
unit main components are HUM (humidifier), DEH (dehumidifier),
and SWS (solar water collector). Fig. 2 shows photographs of the
humidifier and the experimental set-up. The system consists of two

Table 1
Accuracies, ranges, and errors of measuring instruments.

Property Used instrument Accuracy Range Error

Temperature Digital thermometer, K-Type ±0.1 °C 0–100 °C 0.25%

Relative humidity ±0.1% (RH) 0–100% 3%
Pressure Pressure gauge (PG) ±0.02 bar 0–2 bar 2%
Solar intensity MS-802 Pyranometer ±1 W/m2 0–5000 W/m2 0.2%
Air velocity Meter TM-401 ±0.1 m/s 0–25 m/s 2%
Fresh water volume Graduate lab vessel ±10 ml 0–1000 ml 2%
Air flow rate Flow meter ±1 SCFM 4–25 SCFM 2%
10 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16

Turn on air compressor and then

Open air control valve at (7) and water control
valve at (2 and 3)

Turn on the pumps (2 and 4) and then

Fill the evaporator to the design level by adjusting the control valves at (1 and 2)

Adjust the pressure and flow rate of air

Record
1. Water temperatures, air temperatures, and humidity of air every five
minutes.
2. Record solar radiation every one hour

Fig. 3. A flow diagram of system operation.

loops, a closed water loop and open-air loop. In the closed water loop, the collector. At HUM exit (3) the hot water is pumped through CV and
hot water at (1) is pumped to the HUM inlet (2) through CV (control FM to TST (thermal storage tank) at (5). The hot salt water is circulated
value) and FM (flow meter) that heats in the evacuated tube solar in a closed loop between HUM and TST. High salt concentration saline

80 1000 80 1000
Solar radiation Solar radiation
70 70
800 800

Solar radiation, W/m2

Solar radiation, W/m2

Temperature, oC
Temperature, oC

60 60
Twi
600 Twi 600
Two
50 Tai 50 Two
Tai
Tao 400 400
40 Tao
40
17/6/2013
200 21/7/2013 200
30 ma = 11 kg/hr 30 ma = 13.2 kg/hr
H = 15 cm
H = 15 cm
20 0 20 0
8 10 12 14 16 18 20 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Local Time, hr Local Time, hr

(a) (b)
80 1000 80 1000
Solar radiation Solar radiation
70 70
800 800
Solar radiation, W/m2

Solar radiation, W/m2

Temperature, oC

Temperature, oC

60 60
600 Twi 600
Twi
50 Two 50 Two
Tai
Tai 400 400
40 Tao
Tao 40
13/8/2013 200 6/9/2013 200
30 ma = 15.4 kg/hr 30
ma = 17.6 kg/hr
H = 15 cm H = 15 cm
20 0 20 0
8 10 12 14 16 18 20 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Local Time, hr Local Time, hr

(c) (d)
Fig. 4. Solar radiation, inlet, outlet water and air temperatures at humidifier at air flow rate: (a) 11 kg/h (b) 13.2 kg/h (c) 15.4 kg/h (d) 17.7 kg/h.
 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16
Fig. 5. Inlet air pressure and exit air relative humidity of the humidifier.
water is rejected from CV at (6). HUM is made of Acrylic plastic sheet of
10 mm thickness with 580 mm × 580 mm cross section, and 900 mm
height as shown in Fig. 2a.
In the open air loop, air at (7) is supplied from the reservoir of a com-
pressor containing 220 l at a pressure of 10 bar. The desired pressure
and flow rate of air at (8) could be adjusted by a PCV (pressure control
valve) and CV (control valve) then is passed through the FM and PG
(pressure gauge) that indicate the pressure before the HUM. The air at
(9) enters to the HUM through the sieve plate which is located at the
bottom of the HUM. Three different sieves are used, 1200 holes each,
with 1, 3, and 5 mm hole diameter. The air flow is humidified by passing
through the water level in HUM and carries vapor water to DEH.
Then, the produce water through a tube is desalinated to FWT
(fresh water tank). Photographs of air flow through the water and
the HUM dimensions are shown in Fig. 2a. DEH is a shell and tube
heat exchanger. The shell is made of 0.7 mm thick steel with dimen-
sions of 400 × 400 mm, and 900 mm height. Inside the shell, the
cooling water tube is fixed.
The type of SWC is an evacuated tube solar collector as shown in
Fig. 2b. It is consisted of 25 evacuated glass tubes with 58 mm diameter
and 1.8 m length. The capacity of TST is 250 l. The tilt angle of solar
collector is 30° for all day.
2.2. Instrumentation
As shown in Fig. 1, a K-Type thermocouple is used to sense water
temperature at the point (2, 3). Digital sensor with data logger is used
Fig. 6. Water and air temperature difference of humidifier.
11
to measure temperature and relative humidity of air at (9, 10). A pres-
sure gauge (PG) is used to measure air pressure measurement at (9).
A MS-802 Pyranometer sensor is used to measure solar radiation and
wind speed is measured by air velocity meter TM-401. The air flow
rate is measured at (9) by a flow meter, where the water flow rate is
measured at (1 and 3) by a flow meter. All sensors are calibrated before
using to determine the probes sensibility. The accuracy, range and er-
rors that occurred in measuring instruments are shown in Table 1. The
errors are calculated for thermocouples, solar meter, anemometer and
collection tank. The minimum error that occurred in any instrument is
equal to be the ratio between its last count and minimum value of the
output measured. To estimate the uncertainties in the results presented
in this work, the approach described by Barford [23] is applied. The un-
certainty in the measurements is defined as the root sum square of the
fixed error of the instrumentation and the random error observed during
different measurements. Accordingly, the resulting errors of the calculat-
ed amount of extracting water, daily productivity, daily efficiency,
and Gained Output Ratio of the desalination system are ± 0.24%,
± 0.65%, ± 1.52%, and ± 1.28%, respectively.
2.3. System operation
The following steps describe the testing procedure in details and
Fig. 3 presents a flow diagram of system operation.
1. Prior to testing, the system is checked.
2. Turn on air compressor to fill its tank with a compressed air.
12 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16

Fig. 7. Effect of inlet water temperature on the amount of extracting water for different water height at air flow rate: (a) 11 kg/h (b) 13.2 kg/h (c) 15.4 kg/h (d) 17.6 kg/h.

3. Open air control valve at (7) to eject air through HUM. 2.4. Efficiency and Gained Output Ratio of system
4. Open water control valve at (2, 3), turn on the pumps (2, 4) and let
the water flow to the evaporator to fill it, then adjust the flow rate It is important to calculate the hourly and daily efficiency of the
and the level of water in evaporator by adjusting the control valves desalination unit to know the performance achieved in real systems is
before and after the evaporator at (1, 2) manually. calculated as:
5. After the water level became stable adjust the pressure and flow rate
of air by using the pressure control valve to the desired pressure and
adjusting flow control valve to the wanted volume flow rate.
6. Record water temperatures, air temperatures, and humidity of air,
every five minutes. ðMw  LH wav Þ=3600
ηh ¼ 100  ð1Þ
7. Record solar radiation every one hour. ðASWS IS þ PP þ Wc Þ

Fig. 8. Variations of air temperature and humidity ratio at dehumidifier inlet and exit at different air flow rate.
 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16 13

Table 2 where LHw is the latent heat of vaporization at the ambient condition,
The inlet and exit of average cooling water temperature in dehumidifier. and [(m × h)w,i − (m × h)w,o] is the total enthalpy difference between
ma, kg/h Tdeh,wi, °C Tdeh,wo, °C entering and leaving the humidifier for hot water. The hot water flow
11 22.3 26.1
rate, leaving the system is calculated as:
13.2 20.3 23.0
15.4 19.6 23.4 mw;o ¼ mw;i −Mw : ð5Þ
17.6 20.0 27.0

3. Results and discussion

1Xn
Test rig external ambient conditions are very important. Average
ηd ¼ η ð2Þ
n 1 h relative humidity of the ambient air is 15–40%. Wind speed during the
experimental is 1.5–3 m/s in that period of time. The inlet water flow
  rate to HUM is 10 l/min while, the exit water flow rate is measured by
LHw:av ¼ 103  2501:9−2:40706 Tw þ 1:192217  10−3 T 2w −1:5863  10−5 T 3w
FM and checked by using Eq. (5). Four different values of air flow rates
ð3Þ are used 11, 13.2, 15.4, and 17.7 kg/h each value has been used during
a whole working day. In addition, four different values of water height
where ηh and ηd are the hourly and daily efficiency, Mw is the hourly in humidifier are used 5, 10, 15, and 20 cm.
productivity, LHw.av is the average of the latent heat of vaporization of
water, El-Dessouky and Ettouney [24], ASWS is the solar water collector 3.1. Effect of 1 mm hole diameter
area, IS is the incident solar radiation on the collector surface, Pp = I × V
is the power of pumps that are measured with different flow rate of cold Depending upon weather conditions which are different during the
and hot water, Wc is a power of compressor and n is the duration time of daytime, the wind speed, atmospheric temperature, and solar intensity.
solar radiation. Fig. 4 shows the general trend of solar radiation, inlet and outlet water
The Gained Output Ratio (GOR) is calculated as McGovern et al. [25]: temperature and air temperature at humidifier inlet and out for 11,
13.2, 15.4, and 17.7 kg/h air mass flow rate. It can be seen that the solar
M w  LHw radiation and air temperature at humidifier inlet increases in the morning
GOR ¼ h i ð4Þ hours, reaching its maximum values around midday, and then decreases
ðm  hÞw;i −ðm  hÞw;o
in the afternoon. In case of water, water temperature started from high

25 80
Daily productivity, kgw/day

20 60
Daily effeciency, %

15 40

Air flow rater, ma Air flow rate, ma

10 11 kg/hr 20 11 kg/hr
13.2 kg/hr 13 kg/hr
15.4 kg/hr 15.4 kg/hr
17.6 kg/hr 17.6 kg/hr
5 0
56 58 60 62 64 56 58 60 62 64
o
Average hot water temperature, oC Average hott water temperature, C

(a) (b)

0.55

0.50

0.45 Water Flow rate, ma

11 kg/hr
GOR

0.40 13.2 kg/hr

15.4 kg/hr
0.35 17.6 kg/hr

0.30

0.25
56 58 60 62 64
Average hot water temperature, 0C

(c)

Fig 9. Effect of average hot water temperature on: (a) Daily productivity (b) Daily efficiency (c) GOR.
14 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16

Fig. 10. Effect of diameter holes of sieve plate on productivity, efficiency, and GOR.

temperature and then decreases in the morning hours, nearly remains flow rate due to increase of the air bubble number that increases the
constant around midday, and then decreases in the afternoon. The high rate of interface area. Also, the amount of extracting water slightly in-
temperature of the water at the beginning is because the water in the creases as the water height increases due to the increase time contact
solar collector tank heating from sunrise to the desalination unit starts of air bubbles with water and consequently heat and mass transfer
at 9.5 AM. In the morning hours, the water temperature decreases be- increases.
cause the energy lost from water in the humidifier is larger than that Fig. 8 presents air temperature and humidity ratio of dehumidifier
the energy gain by solar radiation to the solar collector. In the midday, inlet and exit at different air flow rate. The air temperature and humid-
the water temperature nearly constant. This is because the energy lost ity ratio of dehumidifier exit are slightly affected by both air flow rate
from water in the humidifier is nearly equal the energy gain by solar radi- and hot water temperature of humidifier. It can be seen also that the
ation to the solar collector in this period. air humidity ratio of dehumidifier exit is about 25 gmw/kga. Also,
Fig. 5 shows inlet air pressure and exit air relative humidity of the Table 2 shows the inlet and exit of average cooling water temperature
humidifier. The inlet air pressure gauge at the humidifier change from in dehumidifier. It can be seen also that a temperature difference from
9 to 23 kPa, while the outlet air pressure is atmospheric pressure. The 3 to 7 °C on inlet cooling water temperature influences.
pressure drop (Δp) of the air bubble can be modeled as an exponential Fig. 9 shows the effect of average hot water temperature on daily
function of the air flow rate (ma), Δp ≈ (ma)2 [26]. Therefore, the in- productivity, daily efficiency and GOR at different inlet hot water flow
crease of air flow rate increases the pressure drop. Also, the increase rate. It indicates that both of average daily water temperature and
of air flow rate increases the bubble rise velocity and bubble size. In ad- water flow rate promote the daily productivity, daily efficiency and
dition, the increase of the number of air bubbles increases the rate of in- GOR increases. The results indicate that the water flow rate and temper-
terface area, which increase the productivity. Relative humidity reached ature play an important role in the system performance.
to 100%, almost the time of the process (therefore, there is any reasons
to use hole diameter less than 1 mm and pay more air side pressure
drop), similar to Ghazal et al. [21] and higher than that El-Agouz and
Abugderah [15] due to the decrease difference between the air dry-
bulb/wet-bulb temperatures.
Fig. 6 presents temperature difference of water and air at different
water heights and air flow rates. As can be seen in Fig. 6, the water outlet
temperature is slightly affected by both air flow rate and water height. It
can be seen also that a temperature difference of 2.5 °C on water inlet
temperature influences also the outlet air temperatures of 22.5 °C. Be-
cause this water has a high specific heat compared with low air specific
heat (4.18 against 1 kJ/kg K), which causes a large amount of air to en-
hance water temperature. The air flow rate has no significant influence
on the parameter and the difference value is constant for all the condi-
tions considered, for a given inlet temperature. This could mean that
with all air flow rate, the system is able to exchange all the available en-
ergy. It could be mean that the efficiency of the heat transfer is very
high, because the air exit temperature is very close to the water inlet
one as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 7 shows the relation between inlet water temperature and
amount of extracting water at different water height and air mass
flow rate. It can be seen that as the inlet water temperature increases
the amount of extracting water highly increases. Therefore, it has a
great effect on the amount of extracting water. The amount of extracting
water increases by 51.4, 76, 73, and 60.7% as inlet hot water tempera-
ture increases from 60 to 70 °C, at 11, 13.2, 15.4, and 17.7 kg/h, respec-
tively, for air mass flow rate and the H = 20 cm. The amount of Fig. 11. The enhancement of humidity ratio difference at the humidifier for the present
extracting water slightly increases with the increase of the air mass and previous results.
 A. Khalil et al. / Desalination 372 (2015) 7–16 15

3.2. Effect of 1, 3, and 5 holes diameter Pp pump power, W

T temperature, °C
Fig. 10 illustrates the effect of sieve's hole diameter on the amount of
water extracted, daily efficiency and GOR. The amount of extracting Greek letters
water decreases as sieve holes diameter increases and 5 mm orifice η Efficiency
diameter gave the lowest productivity. It is observed that at 5 mm
sieve's hole diameter the flow started to transform to be jet flow. The Subscripts
extracting water for 1 mm hole diameter is higher than that 3 and a air
5 mm hole diameter by 9.1%, and 14.6%, respectively. The best perfor- av average
mance is observed from sieve with 1 mm hole diameter. Because the di- c compressor
ameter of the air bubbles decreases and the number of air bubbles d daily
increases as the sieve holes diameter decreases. Consequently, surface h hourly
contact area between bubbles and hot water increases hence the heat i inlet
and mass transfer. o outlet
s solar
3.3. Comparison with literatures w water

Fig. 11 compares between enhancement of humidity ratio difference Abbreviations

at the humidifier for the present and previous results. The percentage CC cooling coil
improvement in either system is given by: CV control value
DEH dehumidifier
ΔωPresent −ΔωPrevious FM flow meter
Enhancement ¼ 100  : ð6Þ
ΔωPrevious FWT fresh water tank
GOR gain output ratio
It is inferred from Fig. 11, when the inlet water temperature has HUM humidifier
increased from 45 to 70 °C, the enhancement of presenting results is PCV pressure control valve
approximately 4–58% of Amer et al. [10], 22–206% from Zhani [12], SWC solar water collector
and 30–270% of Garg et al. [7]. It can be noted that the present work TC thermocouples
achieved higher productivity than that listed for previous systems. TES Thermal Energy Storage

4. Conclusion
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