Experimental study on steam side vacuum capillary concentrated ethylene glycol aqueous solution

ABSTRACT

The separation system is designed to separate and concentrate the aqueous glycol solution under a low-temperature heat source. The experiment found that the pore size of the capillary wick, the verticality of the evaporator, as well as the degree of vacuum and the inlet flow rate of the working fluid are important factors for the success of the experiment. At a vacuum of 10 kpa and a flow rate of less than 5 mL/min, the ethylene glycol aqueous solution was separated and concentrated at a temperature between 90 and 105℃, and the ethylene glycol content in the condensate was less, reducing the loss of ethylene glycol. The steam side vacuum capillary evaporation system proposed in this paper utilizes the difference of the surface force between the metal porous structure and the binary solution, thereby causing excess increase of the relative volatility of the two solution components, and strengthening the separation effect of the binary solution, meanwhile, the system can uses industrial waste heat as heat source, which has great potential to be a new kind of binary solution separation method.

KEYWORDS:

• Metal powder sintered porous capillary wicks
• evaporation
• ethylene glycol
• capillary distillation

Supplementary material

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