Experimental study of high-performance hybrid NF-MSF desalination pilot test unit driven by renewable energy

Abstract

This study presents the experimental results of a renewable energy (RE) driven, high-performance multi-stage flash (MSF) desalination unit integrated with nanofiltration (NF) membrane. The desalination pilot test is built to evaluate, the performance of the novel De-aeration and brine Mix (MSF-DBM) configuration. The NF pilot is build in order to enable MSF desalination unit the operation at high top brine temperature (TBT). The capacity of the desalination pilot plant is 1.0 m3/day of water. The whole pilot plant is installed at Wadi El-Natroun (Egypt). This study presents the first phase of the project, including the pilot test description, and experiments of concentrated solar trough, steam generator, NF and MSF units. Comparison between the simulation and the experimental results of the pilot unit’ subsystems are relatively satisfactory. The newly developed NF-MSF-DBM (de-aerator and brine mix) configuration is tested at TBT = 100°C and the gain output ratio (GOR) is calculated as 15 which almost twice of traditional MSF under the same operating conditions. The newly high-performance NF-MSF-DBM and unit’s input thermal energy which make the integration with (the relatively expensive) RE as a desalination plant driver is a viable option.