Lake Evaporation Mitigation Using Self-Assembled Films: Case Study Of Chitgar Lake

Abstract

Evaporation is a significant outflow in water bodies and is the only outflow in man-made Chitgar Lake. It is estimated to be more than 2 million cubic meters annually. In order to mitigate this outflow, we investigated different kinds of self-assembled thickness films. They consist of six different combinations of stearyl and cetyl alcohols with additives including jojoba oil, stearic acid, and calcium hydroxide. The study has been done from July to August with two pairs of class A evaporation pans; one pair semi-floated on Chitgar lake water and another one located on the shore. The experimental results showed that a monolayer contained 3:1 stearyl to cetyl alcohols with 60% weight of calcium hydroxide had the best performance and could reduce evaporation up to 50% during its 3 days’ lifetime. The study indicated that the films had no significant side effects on lake water pH, turbidity, and total suspended solids except slight increase in water surface temperature.