Efficient Industrial Wastewater and Leachate Evaporation Utilizing Heat Localization in Porous Media

Abstract

In this paper, an efficient industrial wastewater and leachate evaporation method is proposed and tested experimentally. The goal of this study is to investigate whether the addition of a carbon foam (CF) porous layer can lead to energy savings by evaporating more water mass per unit of energy input. The standard boiling evaporator layout was redesigned by placing the heating element in the upper region of the tank and CF underneath the heat source. The CF purposed to localize the energy in an area by the water's surface and minimize conduction heat losses to the rest of the water. A 90.2% reduction in energy lost to regions outside of the CF isolated control volume, specifically during the evaporator preheating process was observed with the addition of 100 Pores Per Inch (PPI) CF. In addition, a reduction in evaporative energy intensity was observed yielding results of 3.344 , 3.441 , and 3.644 for the 100 PPI, 45 PPI, and 10 PPI tests, respectively. This new evaporation design provides a more energy- and cost-efficient method for reducing the volume of various industrial wastewater and leachate concentrations onsite.