Abstract
The most important factor for the desalination system is the fresh water production cost dependent upon the possible energy source which should be obtained easily and with low price. Recently in Korea the demand of LNG, as a cheap and clean energy which does not cause an environmental problem, has sharply been increased. In general, LNG is storaged in a tank as a liquid state below -162 'C. When it is serviced, however, the LNG absorbs energy from a heating source and transforms to the gaseous state with high pressure. During this process a huge amount of cold energy accumulated in LNG is wasted. This waste cold energy can be utilized for producing fresh water from sea water using a sea water freezing desalination system. In order to develop a sea water freezing desalination system and to establish its design technique, a qualitative and quantitative data regarding the freezing behavior of sea water is needed in advance. The goal of this study, therefore, are to reveal the freezing mechanism of sea water, to measure the freezing rate, and to investigate the freezing heat-transfer characteristics. The experimental results help to provide a general understanding of the sea water freezing behavior in a Rectangular vessel cooled from below.