Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-38). / Directional solvent extraction has been demonstrated as a low temperature, membrane free desalination process. This method dissolves the water into an inexpensive, benign directional solvent, rejects the contaminants, then recovers pure water, and re-uses the solvent. In order to bring this technology closer to real world application, a continuous process prototype for a directional solvent extraction system was developed and tested. Octanoic acid was used as the solvent of choice, and a system capable of producing up to 7 gallons per day of fresh water was constructed. The system was tested to effectively desalinate the feed water, and the total system power was less than 7 kW. The system was constructed and first tested to run fresh water and solvent through it. Fresh water was dissolved in and separated, as expected, from the solvent at a rate of about 2 gpd. Saline water containing 3.5% sodium chloride was then used as feedwater and the desalinated water was recovered at a rate of about 1 gpd with an average salinity of 0.175%. Effective continuous operation of the directional solvent extraction prototype was demonstrated. Certain design improvements to increase efficiency, optimize component sizes, and decrease energy consumption are suggested. The demonstrated system has a wide range of applications, including production of fresh water from the sea, as well as, treatment of produced and flowback water from shale gas and oil extraction. / by Michael James Fowler. / S.B.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/76130 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Fowler, Michael James |
| Contributors | Gang Chen., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. |
| Publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | M.I.T. Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 38 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 |
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