A comprehensive simulation analysis to optimize the performance of spray evaporator on treating concentrated brine

Abstract

The freshwater resources deficient has been dominated the world's science and policy agenda, owing to the population growth, rapid industrialization, and environmental pollution. Spray evaporator, as a promising and high-efficient desalination technology, has been widely applied to desalination or high salinity wastewater treatment industries. However, current studies on the evaporation characteristics of spray evaporator lack comprehensive analysis and further parameter screening that causes the difficulty to effectively choose optimal parameters for optimization. Therefore, the influences of 11 parameters on evaporation performance were systemically studied via computational fluid dynamics, evaluated via evaporation efficiency, a single droplet evaporation time, and atomization effect, and eventually, the most influential parameters were screened out via stepwise multiple linear regression. The results indicated that all parameters influence the evaporation performance, but the hot air temperature and velocity are the most influential parameters affecting the evaporation efficiency that can jointly explain 55.8 %–58.7 % variations and characteristics of evaporation and should be preferentially considered to improve the efficiency. Furthermore, the compressed air pressure is also worth considering since it could enhance evaporation performance and atomization effect simultaneously. This study provides a new insight and understanding for the design and optimization of spray evaporator.