• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.81-86
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• 2013

Exhaust gas from a small portable electric generator is simply exhausted to the surroundings because the capacity and quality of the waste heat of this gas is generally not sufficient to recover and utilize. We have proposed a seawater distiller utilizing the thermal energy of waste gas from an electric generator. The distiller recovers heat from the waste gas by means of a heat pipe and uses it effectively through a multiple-effect diffusion-type structure. We constructed an experimental apparatus with a vertical single-effect still having a 4-stroke 50 cc generator engine and found that the experimental results for distillate productivity show good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The results show that the distiller can recover 52 W of waste heat from the gas at $171^{\circ}C$, and ~85% of the recovered heat can be utilized for distillation to produce 70 g/h of fresh water. This is equivalent to a productivity of 500 g/h in the case of a 10-effect still. Therefore, the proposed distiller should be useful in remote areas where electricity and water grids are inadequate.