Experimental study and performance analysis of a portable atmospheric water generator

Abstract

Found in some specific scenarios, drinking water is hard for people to get, such as during expeditions and scientific investigations. First, a novel water generator with only two thermoelectric coolers (Model A) is designed for extracting water from atmospheric vapor and then experimentally studied under a small inlet air flow rate. The impact of operating conditions on surface temperatures of cold/hot sides and water yield are investigated, including the air flow rate and humidity. Alternately, to determine the super performance of Model A, a comparative experiment between Model A and a reference model (Model B) is carried out. The results suggest that both the cold/hot temperature and water yield in Model A increases with the humidity and air flow rate rising. Seen in comparisons of Model A and Model B, it is found that, at an air humidity of 90% and air flow rate of 30 m3/h, the total water yield was increased by 43.4% and the corresponding value reached the maximum increment of 66.7% at an air humidity of 60% and air flow rate of 30 m3/h. These features demonstrate the advantage of Model A especially in low air humidity compared to Model B.