I am working on a project known as atmospheric water generator,where i am using silica gel as a desicant to extract water vapour from humid air and gets adsorbed.So i want to use that adsorbed water molecules to pure drinking water.Please suggest me the detailed methods on how to do so.
Silica gel is a granular, vitreous, porous form of silicon dioxide made synthetically from sodium silicate. Silica gel contains a nano-porous silica micro-structure, suspended inside a liquid. Most applications of silica gel require it to be dried, in which case it is called silica xerogel. For practical purposes, silica gel is often interchangeable with silica xerogel. Silica xerogel is tough and hard; it is more solid than common household gels like gelatin or agar. It is a naturally occurring mineral that is purified and processed into either granular or beaded form. As a desiccant, it has an average pore size of 2.4 nanometers and has a strong affinity for water molecules.
Silica gel is most commonly encountered in everyday life as beads in a small (typically 2 x 3 cm) paper packet. In this form, it is used as a desiccant to control local humidity to avoid spoilage or degradation of some goods. Because silica gel can have added chemical indicators and absorbs moisture very well, silica gel packets usually bear warnings for the user not to eat the contents.
Regeneration:
Once saturated with water, the gel can be regenerated by heating it to 120 °C for 1 to 2 hours. Some types of silica gel will "pop" when exposed to enough water. This is caused by breakage of the silica spheres when contacting the water. Evidently this type of silia-gel is to be avoided in use.
When the water is released by heating the silica gel, the only thing to still do is a question of recpaturing water vapour from the regnerating silicac gel on a cold surface, Hence, the heated air has to evacuated from the regenerating silica-gel and moved over a cold spot so that it condenses (hence why not use a good Peltier based condenser right?). Then one can simply harvest the condensed water dripping out of the condenser and use the regenerated siilica-gel to capture water again. It is a kind of 'perpertuum mobile', but evidently driven by the energy (heat) needed to regenerate the silica-gel.
It's that simple.
Good luck, and schol,
Frank
Why not just pass the original humid air over a condenser in the first place? Why do you need the silica gel?
Boiling water and then cooling the humid air so the water condenses out is just regular old distillation.
Depends on teh type of application Douglas. That's pretty obvious.
Frank
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