Experimental Study: Effect of Refrigerant and Inlet Air Flow Rate on the Productivity of Atmospheric Water Generator

Abstract

Clean water is a natural resource that humans really need.However, availability is starting to be limited.One solution to overcome this problem is to condense the water vapor in the atmospheric air.Condensation of water vapor can be done using an atmospheric water generator (AWG) based on the vapor compression cycle (VCC) using refrigerant.This research aims to find the best conditions for extracting water vapor content in atmospheric air where the best conditions are determined by the optimum amount of refrigerant used and also the optimum rate of atmospheric air.In this research, 3 variations of refrigerant mass flow rate were carried out, namely 0.00124 kg/s, 0.00128 kg/s and 0.00131 kg/s.Furthermore, for the best mass flow rate, 3 variations of atmospheric air velocity entering the cooling/condensing chamber were carried out, namely 2.7 m/s, 2.1 m/s and 1.6 m/s.The test results show that optimal conditions (producing the most water) occur at a refrigerant mass flow rate of 0.00124 kg/s and with an air velocity entering the condensation chamber of 1.6 m/s.The water produced under optimum conditions is 73 ml/hour.Furthermore, the test results also show that apart from being a water producer, the AWG tool can also be used as an air conditioner for tropical areas.

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