Experimental investigation of a desalination system using porous carbon tube as a humidification media with swirl flow

Humidification-dehumidification (HDH) technology is a technique for small-scale water desalination applications based on carrier gas humidification motivated by thermal energy. The present work introduces an experimental investigation of a desalination unit based on HDH method. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the heat and mass transport properties of porous carbon tubes (PCT) as a humidification medium with swirl flow for HDH unit. Processes for transferring heat and mass are investigated at varied the temperatures of water and air, water-to-air mass ratios (MR), and helical flow channel pitch (HCP). The performance analysis is investigated based on some of performance metrics such as gained output ratio (GOR), humidification efficiency (ηH), exergy efficiency (ηex), sustainability indicator (SI), and water cost (WC). Results indicate that the increase in MR and HCP increases all of performance parameters. High values of MR based on low air flow rate decrease the entropy generation and enhance the exergy efficiency. The humidity efficiency and GOR improve with the rise in the MR based on the water flow rate. The study of sustainability indicator shows that the proposed system has possibilities of doing business. It still has room for energy improvement and losses, though. The system's usability will increase after these modifications are made. When the process temperature associated with heating the feed water or/and input air rises, more freshwater is produced. The proposed system's maximum hourly yield reaches about 0.225 L with cost 0.078 cent. The best value of GOR, exergy efficiency, humidification efficiency and suitability indicator performed by the current system are about 3, 51.67 %, 48.72 % and 2.07 respectively. •An experimental investigation to assess HDH desalination system performance using a porous carbon tube with swirl flow•The freshwater yield increases with the increase of the process temperature.•The proposed system's maximum hourly yield reaches about 0.225 L with a cost of 0.078 cent.•The value of GOR and humidification efficiency is 3 and 48.72 % respectively.•The exergy efficiency and suitability indicator reached 51.67 % and 2.07 respectively.