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Enhanced Desalination in a Hot-Bubble Pilot Plant

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  • Thi Thuy Nguyen,
  • Adrian Garrido Sanchis ,
  • Richard M. Pashley
Thi Thuy Nguyen
School of Science, UNSW Canberra, Northcott Drive, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia
Bio
Adrian Garrido Sanchis
School of Science, UNSW Canberra, Northcott Drive, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia
Bio
Richard M. Pashley
School of Science, UNSW Canberra, Northcott Drive, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Substantia-3353

Published 2025-06-19

Keywords

  • Desalination,
  • Hot-bubble pilot plant,
  • Helium,
  • Combustion gas,
  • Dry Air

How to Cite

Nguyen, T. T., Sanchis , A., & Pashley , R. (2025). Enhanced Desalination in a Hot-Bubble Pilot Plant. Substantia. https://doi.org/10.36253/Substantia-3353

Copyright (c) 2025 Thi Thuy Nguyen, Adrian Garrido Sanchis , Richard M. Pashley

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

The bubble-column evaporator (BCE) offers a simple, energy-efficient and affordable seawater desalination process based on sub-boiling evaporation by enhancing the efficiency of heat and mass transfer through a constant flow of dense, heated bubbles rising in a solution-filled column. A large-scale hot-bubble pilot plant (HBPP), based on the BCE, was built to implement the thermal desalination process. Several different inlet gases, dry air, helium and combustion exhaust gas, were used in the HBPP to produce purified water from synthetic seawater. The efficiency was improved by using hot combustion gas instead of dry air or helium at the same inlet temperature, thereby reducing the energy consumption.

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