Water generation from air utilizing solar energy and adsorption refrigeration unit

Abstract

The invention is a water generator device from air utilizing solar thermal energy and adsorption principle. The system is based on an adsorption refrigeration unit with Ether as a refrigerant and activated carbon as adsorbed. The required heat is generated from evacuated tube solar system and the heat sink is the atmosphere. The adsorption unit is an air-cooled refrigeration unit that can operate at relatively low hot water temperature (60-70° C.) and relatively high atmospheric temperature (30-40° C.). The water condensed from air is than driven through a simple water purification unit to assure its quality as drinking water. The very small electricity needed to operate the hot water and cold water pumps along with the filtration unit and the controller of the adsorption unit is generated from a small Photo Voltaic (PV) unit for stand alone systems.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to a water generator system from air utilizing solar thermal energy and adsorption. The invention specifically concerns the system based on an adsorption refrigeration unit with ether as a refrigerant and activated carbon as adsorbent.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The systems generate water from air are based on the passive desiccant adsorption principle. In these systems humid cold air is passed through a humidity adsorbent and then solar energy is used for repelling the adsorbed water into hot air to increase its humidity content. When the humid air cooled to around atmospheric temperature, condensation occurs. Furthermore there are refrigeration units operating by electricity to provide dehumidification of air. These units utilize the solar photon energy of the sun but these systems are very expensive.[0003]In prior art, some patent applications DE4430902, JP2004232998, RU2230858, U.S. Pat. No. 421,934 and US2005 / 103615 are kn...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017]5—Simple controller is needed in for present invention while complicated controller is neede

Problems solved by technology

These units utilize the solar photon energy of the sun but these systems are very expensive.

None of these patents uses an active refrigeration unit to condense water directly from the air.

The adsorption principle is applied to the refrigeration unit which can also act as solar cooling unit with some modification.3—The water extraction by such techniques is limited since it is bounded to cool humid air to atmospheric temperature only.

The present invention extracts water day or night and at any suitable or needed time.5—The operation of those patents is limited to low ambient temperature at night and will not work efficiently for high night temperature.

Furthermore, the operation cycle in patent US2005 / 103615 is totally different from the cycle in the present invention since it does not have a continuous cyclic operation and does not allow for regeneration of residual gas.

The cycle in the previous patent is of low efficiency and needs a very high heating temperature (120° C. or 250° F.) which the inventor can only obtain by using parabolic trough or concentrating dish solar collector with tracking mechanism.

Furthermore, such high degree of hot temperature can only be obtained in a non-hazy or non-cloudy day for few period of the day.

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