Design and fabrication of multi-functional equipment to produce gaseous nitrogen/oxygen and water from ambient air

• Published in: IOP conference series. Earth and environmental science 2021-11, Vol.850 (1), p.12006
• Main Authors: Chatterjee, Debdutta, Karunamurthy, Krishnasamy, Aditya, Nimmagadda Sree Nigam, Dalal, Deepak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon Molecular Sieves; Climate change; COVID-19; Distillation; Distilled water; Drinking water; Fabrication; Fresh water; Global warming; Land acquisition; Mechanical components; Molecular sieves; N2 and O2 production; Nitrogen; Oxygen; Packaging; Pressure Swing Adsorption; Programmable logic controllers; Receiving waters; Timing devices; Water from air; Water shortages; Water table; Zeolites
• ISSN: 1755-1307; 1755-1315
• DOI: 10.1088/1755-1315/850/1/012006

Mother earth provides all the necessary resources for the existence of life. Despite the rich resources of water on our planet, majority of world’s total population experiences water shortage annually. Studies have shown that with the increase of global warming, the average humidity of ambient air is rising annually. Due to the decrease of water table on land, alternative sources of acquiring potable water can be of great utility. Out of the several methods available to tap potable water, this paper aims to achieve an alternate source of receiving fresh water directly from ambient air. This process is completely different from distillation. The ambient air also comprises a majority of Nitrogen, and this N2 is used for the purpose of creating an inert environment in packaging industries and for the purpose of extinguishing fire, a multi-functional equipment has been fabricated in order to extract water, along with pure Nitrogen gas from the residual dry air. A Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) system is used to separate the Nitrogen from remaining air molecules based on their relative molecular size. In the current industrial sectors, the valves required to actuate the flow of air in PSA system are controlled by PLC circuits and Cam followers. These electro-mechanical components are overpriced. In this work electronic timers are used to actuate the valve timing, which resulted in economical. The system fabricated is simple in construction and it is easy to replace the Carbon Molecular Sieves (CMS) with Zeolite Molecular Sieves in order to obtain Oxygen gas as the pure product that can be used to help Covid-19 patients using medical grade filters. The system can be scaled up with larger mass of CMS, bigger PSA towers and greater compressor power in order to increase productivity.