Utvärdering av lämpliga metoder för vattengenerering
This master thesis has been performed at the department of Machine Design at KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology. The thesis has been a part of a global development project in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology, Lund Faculty of Engineering and Stanford University. Corporate liaison and sponsor has been Immerse Global Inc. The project was also performed on sponsorship from the Product Innovation Engineering Program, PIEp. The thesis is a representation of some of the contributions made by the authors.The lack of clean drinking water is one of the key issues facing the world today. The water in many countries is of poor quality creating a big demand for bottled water where the economic means are available. For underdeveloped countries this has led to the death of millions while it in the industrialized world has meant a big increase in consumption of bottled water which has had a big negative effect on the environment. There have been some efforts in trying to develop an applicable technology as a solution to the water problem. One line of products in particular has been influential for this project. These products are known as atmospheric water generators and are trying to utilize the natural occurrence of water vapor in air in order to produce clean drinking water. Unfortunately the efforts in producing a working, reliable product have been unsuccessful.The objective of this project has been to develop an innovative product that can produce clean drinking water in a consistent way utilizing the moist in the air. This master thesis is a technical investigation and comparison between the main technologies available. The purpose of this thesis is to present the most suitable technology for this application. Theoretical investigations and analysis in combination with practical experiments and prototypes have laid the foundation for an extensive comparison between the two most suitable technologies. The first of these two technologies is the vapor compression cycle. The second is a Lithium Chloride based desiccant cycle. Analysis based on the results attained gave strong indications concerning the application of the two technologies. The main conclusion that could be drawn from these was that the Lithium Chloride system is the most suitable system for the application of this project due to the strict requirements concerning the relative humidity levels in which the product needs to operate. The vapor compression cycle, the more tested and reliable one of the two is because of its poor performance at low humidity levels less suitable for the application of this project. As these requirements state demanded operation in arid environments the choice was fairly simple. Assuming that the product will be used in other environments where the humidity level is higher, over approximately 40% the vapor compression cycle is to be considered as the most suitable solution.