AILR has applied its expertise with liquid desiccants  to the problem of expanding the world's water resources.  The technology for desalinating seawater by distillation is very similar to thermally regenerating a liquid desiccant.  Using our plastic heat exchanger technology, we have proven the very high efficiency of a desalination process that can dramatically reduce both the capital cost and operating cost of thermal desalination plants.  We've named this novel desalination process PureStreamHX.

The PureStreamHX concept was first proven in a 15-plate laboratory model. When operating with low concentration brine (typical of brackish water), the model’s Gain Output Ratio (GOR) and its conversion fraction varied with the maximum brine temperature at the top of the plates as shown in the following graph.

Two values for COP are presented in the graph (red circles). The higher of the two is the COP corrected for the heat loss through the outer envelope of the model. These higher COPs are representative of the performance for a large PureStreamHX unit where the heat lost through the outer envelope is a very small percentage of the thermal input to the plant. As shown in this graph, the COP steadily increases with increasing temperature reaching a value of 17 at 97^oC.  The data for conversion fraction (blue diamonds) show that 10% of the feed stream is converted to pure produce water is one pass through the system.  Higher conversion fractions can be achieved with multiple passes.

A non-proprietary white paper on the PureStreamHX process can be downloaded (PureStreamHX white paper, 47 KB).  AILR will describe the process in more detail to potential commercialization partners upon signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement.