Modelagem e simulação da dessalinização de águas salobras usando um separador ciclônico térmico munido de bicos aspersores.

Abstract

The consumption of fresh water has been increasing worldwide and its possible shortage has become one of the most discussed topics today. With this, there is a need to develop new strategies to address the lack of potable water. Among them, desalination. In this sense, the present work aims to evaluate a conventional cyclone used for the desalination of salt water with the addition of five injector nozzles, located in the upper part of the same. The mathematical model adopted considers three-dimensional, turbulent, stationary and nonisothermal flow for the gas phase, and the application of the Lagrangian model to the particles. The equations of conservation of mass, linear momentum, energy and those of the SST w turbulence model, as well as the constitutive equations and the boundary conditions were solved with the commercial software Ansys CFX. The results of the fields of pressure, temperature, velocity and mass fraction, flow lines, particle trajectories, velocity profiles, total pressure and total temperature inside the thermal cyclone separator are presented. It was noted three-dimensional character of the gas-particle flow within the cyclone presence regions with recirculation zones and reverse flow. The results showed that the temperature variation in both air and water influences the generation of steam inside the cyclonic separator. However, a cautious study is required, for example, to evaluate the influence of the length of the conic part, both in fluid dynamics and kinetics, to try to increase the residence time of the particles and thereby contribute to the heating of the particle.