Research on Nuclear Seawater Desalination Technology Based on Small Modular Reactor ACP100

Abstract

Seawater desalination technology is an important way to solve the shortage of fresh water resources. The combination of nuclear technology and seawater desalination can effectively reduce carbon emissions and help achieve the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. This paper makes a comparative analysis of the water safety and economy of the products by using low-temperature multi-effect distillation (MED) and reverse osmosis (RO) technology based on ACP100 small reactor. The results show that the product water after the third effect can meet the guidance value of total radioactivity in drinking water, and the product water may have the risk of radioactive substances. Therefore, a seawater desalination technology by adding intermediate loop combined with low-temperature MED is proposed, which can make the product water meet the requirements of drinking water standards. The economic calculation results show that the water production cost of MED is about twice that of RO. For MED process, the water production cost is high due to the high cost of using intermediate loop and steam. In the future, we can further explore the high-efficiency and low-cost nuclear waste heat utilization seawater desalination technology.