Research Article

Freshwater production and solar disinfection of water released from the air-conditioning cooling system: an experimental investigation

¹ Research cooperator with Public Authority for Water, Al-Buraimi Province, P.C. 512, Oman
² Public Authority for Water, Al-Buraimi Province, P.C. 512, Oman
³ Faculty of Engineering, Sohar University, Sohar, P.C. 311, Oman

^* e-mail: dr.iessa89@gmail.com

Received: 11 March 2020
Accepted: 27 April 2020

Abstract

Providing drinkable water for people is one of the crux duties of any government worldwide. As long, Oman classified among countries that suffer from a shortage of water resources, therefore finding any new sources of water is considered as very substantial work. In present work, a research was carried out on a massive quantity of water that is released out from cooling air-conditioning system in humid zones in Oman as byproduct water. The results showed that the average quantity of water gained from one AC in chosen cities was about 2 L/h, 1.9 L/h, and 1.7 L/h in Muscat, Sohar, and Al-Buraimi respectively. The results exposed that the water was almost distilled water with a pH of about 7. The electrical conductivity was very low, within the range of 45 µS/cm and less. The turbidity of the tested water was low as well, in the range of about 0.6 NTU. Additionally, it was found that solar disinfection technique was very effective to inactivate the existing bacteria in the examined water. A temperature of about 43 °C can be reached after solar irradiation for 2 h with transparent bottles. While, a temperature of around 84 °C was achieved on a sunny day after 6 h of irradiation time. The significant result of the solar disinfection was that the complete inactivation of bacteria could be achieved with an irradiation period of 2–4 h, depending on the number of bacteria per unit volume and the weather state. Moreover, some of the gained water was converted into drinking water after adding some required elements, filtration and disinfection by solar energy. Also, it is strongly recommended to use the released drain-water from cooling air-conditioning systems in the electrolysis unit cells for hydrogen gas production in conjugation with solar energy.