Employees of the Institute of Thermal Physics. Kutateladze of the Siberian Branch of the SS Russian Academy of Sciences found out how to speed up the process of desalination of sea water and treatment of waste fresh water near nuclear and thermal power plants. They plan to “freeze” the contaminated liquid with the help of gas to obtain clean water when thawed. This was reported to socialbites.ca at the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
Traditionally, multistage distillation and reverse osmosis are used for desalination and water purification. However, these methods are extremely energy intensive. To reduce costs, scientists have proposed turning to a more environmentally friendly method of water purification by converting it to a gas hydrate state (a special combination of water and gas that resembles ice). Once formed, it simply engulfs pure water and stores it until it “thaws”.
The usage problem is that the hydrate formation rate is quite low and it is difficult to separate the synthesized hydrate suspension from the mother liquor.
To solve these problems, scientists developed a method for obtaining gas hydrates based on the cycle of boiling and condensation of the hydrate-forming gas in the volume of water. The proposed method makes it possible to obtain a hydrate weighing more than one kilogram per hour using existing laboratory equipment, which is much faster than analogues that require more than a day to obtain a hydrate.
“This rate of hydrate production is due to the simultaneous combination of several factors: simultaneous injection of large volumes of gas (the gas is supplied in a liquefied state), mixing, cooling the reaction mixture, and removing the heat released during hydrate formation. socialbites.ca from the Institute of Heat Physics.
So far, research is being done on freon 134a modeling gas. To create a hydrate from this gas, a small overpressure of not more than 2 atmospheres is sufficient, which makes it possible to visually observe all the processes taking place in the installation and more accurately describe the main aspects of the method under development.
The results obtained allow us to start adapting the developed method for water purification using a gas that is safe for the human body.