WO2010045892A1

WO2010045892A1 - Method and device for desalinating and/or purification of water

Info

Publication number: WO2010045892A1
Application number: PCT/CY2009/000001
Authority: WO
Inventors: Dmitry Ponomarenko; Oleg Ovtchinnikov
Original assignee: Branlay Capital Holding Ltd
Priority date: 2008-10-23
Filing date: 2009-10-02
Publication date: 2010-04-29
Also published as: CY2601B1

Abstract

The objective of the current Invention is the creation of an economical and inexpensive system for desalinating and purification of water at any fouling level and temperature ranging from 0° C to 100° C. Such system increases the quality of water and augments the degree of extraction of salts and impurities from water. To achieve the above mentioned objective, the current Invention possesses at least one isolated zone, where the salty (seawater) or the polluted water enters. In addition, the Invention has at least one zone of low pressure or vacuum, which is also a zone where the steam of low pressure is formed. Also, the Invention possesses no less than one zone to condense the steam into desalted or pure water. The Invention is made in such a way, that causes the salty or polluted water to evaporate when subjected to low pressure in the vacuum or low pressure zone, and salts and impurities remain in the zone for salty or dirty water. The steam of low pressure condenses in the zone for desalted or pure water. Thus the extraction of impurities, that are dissolved or are present in the water, is achieved.

Description

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The Title of the invention:

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DESALINATING AND/OR PURIFICATION OF WATER

The technical field of the invention:

Desalinating and purification of water. The already existing standards of the "previous technique ":

The already existing desalination and water purification methods can be divided in two basic groups:

1. methods without changing of the aggregate state of the liquid (water) - chemical, electrochemical (electro dialysis), ultra filtration (returned osmosis); 2. methods concerned with intermediate transition of the aggregate state of the liquid into solid or gaseous (vapor) state - freezing, distillation (evaporation).

The presentation of the invention:

The current Invention consists of a Device and a Method for obtaining pure water from salty water (seawater) or water of various levels of pollution, with the daily production capacity ranging from 1000 liters to any necessary volume, for the industrial, farming and home use and for use on vessels. The Method is based upon the well-known methods of generation of low pressure and its control. The current Device directly realizes such Method. Principle of operation.

Salted (or polluted) water is poured out into the Device. By means of piston, low pressure, compared with atmosphere pressure, is created. Under such pressure water evaporation occurs under temperature lower than water boiling-point at the sea level, i.e. 100⁰C. The below pressure, the more intensively evaporation. After complete piston stroke, the formed rarefied space is filled by water steam. During cylinder back stroke the steam becomes condensed. The received condensate is purified and/or sweet water. In the Device there is a space for salt (or polluted) water, entered into the device, and a space for condensed pure water. The device is equipped with valves for entering of the water in use and purified water discharge. Description of desalinating/purification process as per Drawing 1.

Phase 1.

Through the pipe 8 and pouring valve 6 water is entered into "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2, for desalinating/purification. The water is entered by portions, in accordance with volume of "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2. After filling of the glass, the device's drive 9 raises up the piston 3, creating in the zone vacuum space 4 of rarified (low) pressure. The water from "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2 starts intensive evaporation up to boiling. The formed steam fills up the vacuum space 4, and intra-device pressure rises. Sediment, previously dissolved in the water, settles in "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2. Vacuum space 4 is filled by pure water steam. At the same time, lowering of temperature occurs in the zone of "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2. Phase 2.

The device's drive 9 shifts the piston 3 downward. Water steam in the vacuum space 4 begins condensation up to the state of saturated vapor. Then condensation of saturated vapor occurs in two zones: in "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2 and in the zone of pure water condensation 11. After passing of discharge level 10 by the piston 3 and up to initial level of Phase 1 , under pressure formed by the piston 3, opening of water discharge valve 5 occurs and discharge of purified /desalted water. At the same time, since the moment of passing of discharge level 10 by the piston 3 and up to initial level of Phase 1, under pressure formed by the piston 3 opening of discharge valve 7 occurs and discharge of sediment. Washing away of sediment occurs on account of part of pure/desalted water condensed in "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2. The device returned to its initial state. The Phases 1 and 2 may be repeated. Additions to use

1. Phases 1 and 2 may be repeated as many times as necessary. The only limitation is amortization resources.

2. The most effective dimensions of the Device are those having the following proportion: (H*R)/(h*r) = 250, where H - shift of the piston 3, R - radius of the piston 3, h - height of "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2, r - radius of "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2. Such proportion will lead to boiling of water and to most intensive evaporation. This will raise productivity of the Device.

3. Purification and washing away of sediment from "the glass" for pouring of water in use 2 may be done by any other way, besides the described above. 4. If there is need in additional purification/desalinating, the water may run many times through one or several Devices.

5. There are no any demands to the level water salinity or pollution.

6. If the proportion described in paragraph 2 is not kept, for desalting of necessary amount of water more numbers of repeats of Phases 1 and 2 will be necessary.

The brief description of the Drawing 1.

1 - Basic cylinder

2 - "Glass" for pouring of water in use

3 - Piston 4 - Vacuum space

5 - Water discharge valve

6 - Pouring valve

7 - Discharge valve

8 - Pipes for pouring and discharge of "polluted water" 9 - Device's drive

10 - Discharge level

11 - Zone of pure water condensation

Advantages of the invention in relation to the existing technique: The numerous vital advantages derived from use of the current Device include:

1) The Device does not pollute the environment. The process, under which the Device operates, does not include or does not demand any chemical materials (catalysts, inhibitors etc.). As a result, the use of the chemical materials is fractional and the damage to the environment is null. 2) The Device does not demand any filters, including nanofilters for osmosis treatment of the water and chemical materials (catalysts, inhibitors etc.). This is because of the purely mechanical characteristics of the Device and principles of its functioning. The above results in the reduction of the manufacturing cost and simplification of the process of operation. 3) The Method does not include the processes of heating, distillation, filtration, osmosis. In addition, chemical and absorbing materials are not required, since the evaporation process at low pressure cannot be accelerated or improved with the use of such materials. Not only that any preliminary work with water is not required, but for qualitative functioning of the Device they are strongly counter-indicative. The only processes occurring with the water inside the Device are the evaporation process at low temperature (low pressure) and the condensation process.

4) The Method, for the desalination of water, is the most economic in power consumption from the point of view of thermodynamics, and therefore is the most profitable and least costly in comparison with any other methods of desalination. The Degree of Efficiency, of such process, is described by the Boyle and Mariott's Law and Charles and Gay-Lussac's Law and, is the highest among the existing technologies from the standpoint of Mendeleev and Clapeyron's basic equation of thermodynamics. In addition, the consumed energy, described by the same laws, is consumed at the lowest rate in comparison with all other processes of water treatment concerned with desalination or purification.

5) The Device has small dimensions and a small relative weight per unit of produced output and therefore can be set into any building or a construction. The small dimensions of the Device are achieved due to the relationship between the space necessary for the formation of low pressure in the Device and the least linear size that is necessary for the creation of such space. Moreover, the number of components of the Device is minimal and the minimal motion of mobile parts can be lowered to an indefinite small value if such necessity arises. The small relative weight is achieved because the strongest and therefore the heaviest parts only provide for durability of the vacuum space of the Device under the conditions of low pressure, and for this reason, the heavy parts have small dimensions and small weight. The material of the Device can also be chosen having the least weight, if the requirement in cutback of weight arises. The ability to be set into any building or a construction is caused by the simple geometrical forms of the components of the Device and the Device itself (cylinder, lever, rectangular platform etc.) 6) Unlike the other modern day technologies the Device is purely mechanical, which results in an extended working life, up to 50 years, without the need of replacement of the basic parts of the Device. Long exploitation of the various mechanical devices, with several hundred to several thousand cycles per minute, have shown high reliability and an extended exploitation period of several years. The Device of desalination has only a few cycles per minute, thus having a prolonged period of operation (up to 50 years).

7) This Device is the only one in the world that reduces the concentration of heavy water (D2O, DHO, Tr2O, TrHO, TrDO). During the process of evaporation of the standard water (dehydrogen monoxide) under the low pressure the concentration of the heavy water decreases significantly. This occurs because with the given pressure, the absolute quantity of the evaporating heavy water differs radically from the evaporating quantity of the standard water (this property is caused by the variation in the mass of heavy and standard water which has an influence on the temperature and the pressure of boiling). Thus, the concentration of the heavy water in the resulting condensed water decreases. Such water is known as light water and in medicine is considered to be more wholesome to be used by humans.

8) The removal of salts by the means of the Device does not involve a loss of mineralization in the water. During the evaporation, the various ions of the minerals are carried away in the outgoing water by the hydroxyl parts of the water molecule. The resulting water, produced by the Device during the desalination process, is a drinking light mineral water.

9) The Device possesses the feature which allows it to be assembled into an infinitely long system, in other words into a chain of Devices. By means of such modular assemblage it is possible to provide a cascaded purification of dirty water; separately - for clearing of gases, separately - for clearing from liquid substances that are lighter than water, separately - for clearing from liquid substances that are heavier than water and separately - for clearing of solid substances which are dissolved or are in a suspended or colloidal state. In application of the Device for water desalination, the cascaded or the networked configuration allows to increase the output of the desalted water without the need to manufacture a Device with a greater productivity.

10) As distinct from the existing present-day technologies, the Device has the ability to extract by-products from the water. So, with desalination the Device can extract dry sea salt, and with purification of the effluents from the metallurgical enterprises, waste of non-ferrous metals is extracted. The Device can be applied to other types of water for the extraction of the dissolved sediments - for example, a stream flowing through a gold vein can be processed for the purpose of extraction of gold.

H)It is known that most of the existing profitable methods of water desalination or purification are inaccessible to the majority of the developing countries for economic reasons. Due to the low power consumption, it is possible to connect the Device to the alternative energy devices: solar, wind, tidal, surf, waterfall etc. This makes the Device suitable to be used in the poorest countries of the world.

Com arison table

Ways of applying the invention in the industry

1. The Device for desalinating and/or purification of water can be used, by the industrial enterprises, hotels, many-storied buildings and houses, farms, vessels etc., as follows: generation of a cheap drinking water practically from any source of water (for example, ocean, sea, polluted reservoir etc.), and reprocessing of the water in industry, agriculture, domestic use.

2. Due to the ability of the Device to extract the polluting substances of a reservoir, discharging the purified water back to the reservoir, the Device can be placed near or inside a polluted reservoir (for example, rivers, lakes, artesian chinks etc.) with the following purpose: restoration and regeneration of the reservoir, and restoration of the ecological environment surrounding the reservoir.

Claims

What is claimed is: l.The Device of water desalination and /or purification consisting of: a basic cylinder in which there is an aperture for water discharge, a "glass" for pouring of water in use, supplied either with a valve for the discharge of the water or without it, a pipe for discharging of the "polluted water", salt or other impurities, supplied either with the valve for discharge or without it, a zone of pure water condensation, supplied either with the valve for discharge or without it, a mobile piston, which during its movement in one direction, creates a space with low pressure and when moved to an opposite direction causes such space to be eliminated, a zone of vacuum space, the pressure of which, at a given height, can vary from the atmospheric to a low pressure until 450 Pa, a Device's drive connected to the mobile piston and setting it in motion.

2. The Device described in claim 1 can consist of: a basic cylinder in which there is an aperture for water discharge, a "glass" for pouring of water in use, supplied either with a valve for the discharge of the water or without it, a pipe for discharging of the "polluted water", salt or other impurities, supplied either with the valve for discharge or without it, a zone for condensation of pure water, supplied either with the valve for discharge or without it, a mobile piston, which during its movement in one direction, creates a space with low pressure and when moved to an opposite direction causes such space to be eliminated, a zone of vacuum space, the pressure of which, at a given height, can vary from the atmospheric to a low pressure until 450 Pa, a Device's drive connected to the mobile piston and setting it in motion, a network pipe, supplied either with the valve for discharge or without it, connecting the

Device with any other Device via the zone of pure water condensation.

3. The device described in claim 1 can consist of: a "glass" for pouring of water in use, supplied either with a valve for the discharge of the water or without it, a zone of vacuum space, a mobile piston, which during its movement in one direction, creates a space with low pressure and when moved to an opposite direction causes such space to be eliminated, a zone of pure water condensation, supplied either with the valve for discharge or without it,

4. The device described in claim 1 can consist of: a "glass" for pouring of water in use, a zone of pure water condensation, a capacity for gathering the pure water.

5. The method of water desalting/ purification used in the Device, described in claim 1, involves the creation of low pressure in order for the water to boil at any temperature.

6. The pressure, described in claim 5, is the only factor that causes the water to boil inside the Device.

7. The reason that the pure water appears inside the Device, is its evaporation from the utilised water during the «cold boiling» under the low pressure conditions.

8. The «cold boiling», described in claim 7, is the boiling of water at pressure below atmospheric, in a range from 450 Pa to lOOkPa and at temperature ranging from 0⁰C to 100⁰C.

9. The pressure in the Device, described in claim 7 and claim 8, is chosen according to the temperature of the utilised water using the table 9a. Table 9a

10. The low pressure, described in claim 7, claim 8 and claim 9, can be created by the high speed of flow of the utilised water in the last part of the "glass" for pouring of water in use, described in claim 1, claim 2, claim 3 and claim 4.