Abstract
The Multi-effect distillation (MED) associated with thermal vapor compression (TVC) process has recently been applied for a number of desalination plants in the GCC countries and emerged as a strong competitor to the multistage flash distillation (MSF) process. The MED/TVC desalination process is characterized by low power consumption compared to the MSF process. It is currently operated at low TBT of 65°C to avoid scale formation compared to MSF technology which operate at top brine temperature of 110°C, this lead to lower tendency to scale formation and less fouling risk. The use of more efficient pretreatment to MED/TVC desalination plants such as nano-filtration or high performance additive antiscalant would allow operating MED at higher TBT which allow increasing the performance ratio. A simulation steady-state program has been established to analyze the thermodynamic behavior of parallel feed flow MED/TVC unit at a wide range of TBT from 65°C up to 125°C and different number of effects with different condition of motive steam pressure on the performance ratio, and specific heat transfer and therefore the best design of MED for the future different design options were considered to optimize the operational of MED system to enhance the economics and performance of MED technology.
Highlights
The prevailing desalination technologies nowadays are mainly: Multi Stage Flash (MSF), Reverse osmosis (RO) and Multi effects Evaporation (MED)
The simulation model was run with different top brine temperature (TBT) ranging between 65 to 125°C in order to study its effect on the performance of parallel feed Multi-effect distillation (MED)/thermal vapor compression (TVC)
The number of effects in MED was restricted by the assumption that the temperature difference between the two successive effect should be not less than 2.5°C and not more than 8°C which based on the practical design application to keep the specific heat transfer area in the acceptable range in the range of 350 m2/kg/s as per data collected from of multi stage flash (MSF) plants operated in SWCC
Summary
The prevailing desalination technologies nowadays are mainly: Multi Stage Flash (MSF), Reverse osmosis (RO) and Multi effects Evaporation (MED). The multi-stage flash (MSF) desalination process was introduced as an alternative in the 1960s It is a very reliable and dominating desalination technology and it was considered the first choice when a country needs more desalinated water in Gulf regions because of its capability to produce high capacity of desalted water and the high accumulated experience for operation and maintenance. It consumes higher thermal energy, which reaches to 65 kWh/m3 at gain out ratio (GOR) of 10.
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