Flash Distillation Research Articles

Bio-FLASHCHAIN® theory for rapid devolatilization of biomass. 6. V.2.0 decomposition mechanism for mineral-free lignins

According to lig-FC, lignin devolatilization entails depolymerization via monomer rupture, repolymerization via bimolecular recombination, a three-stage charring cascade, and flash distillation of oil precursors in the condensed phase. Simulation results from lig-FC are evaluated with measured product distributions including bio-oil molecular weight distributions (MWDs) from 16 mineral-free lignins for temperatures to 800 °C, heating rates from 60 to 6000°C/s, contact times after heatup to 10 s, and pressures from vacuum to 0.1 MPa. Lig-FC accurately depicts the impacts of lignin quality, temperature, heating rate, and pressure on the major products and oils MWDs. All raw lignins contain abundant oil precursors so that flash distillation ensures that oils are released as soon as a flow of noncondensables carries them into the free stream. In lig-FC the first gases form by monomer decomposition and rupture. The distinctive devolatilization behavior of different mineral-free lignins can be depicted from the lignin MWD, the elemental composition, and the average monomer weight. Oils yields diminish and char yields increase for progressively heavier MWDs and heavier mean monomer weights; and for smaller H/C and O/H and larger O/C. Bimolecular recombination is required to interpret the disparate ultimate oils yields for vacuum and 0.1 MPa. Faster recombination in conjunction with suppressed volatility at atmospheric pressure reduce the ultimate oils yield to only half that for vacuum.

Avtur Waste Treatment to Produce Useful Fuel Products based on ASTM Standard

The many avtur samples that are tested every month has an impact on avtur waste that accumulates in the PT. Pertamina Lubricant PU Jakarta laboratory. Avtur wastes are usually just thrown away without being processed again. This study focuses on the utilization of avtur test results waste by knowing the quality of avtur waste with flash point, distillation, freezing point, density and color test parameters. The aims of this research are to solve the problem of waste from avtur testing results by reusing avtur waste to become a product so as to reduce the occurrence of losses. The first step is to prepare a sample of waste from avtur test results and then perform tests on the flash point, distillation, freezing point, density and color test parameters. After that, avtur waste was formulated: avtur ASTM standard T.107 with variations in the formulation, namely 5% LA : A, 10% LA : A, 15% LA : A and 20% LA : A. After that, the mixing process was carried out for 15 minutes using a stirrer motor with a speed of 300 rpm (rotations per minute). Then flash point, distillation, freezing point, density and color tests were carried out to get results that match the specifications of the avtur. The results showed that the formulation of the avtur test results: avtur according to American Standard Testing and Material (ASTM) standard had met the avtur specifications. Where the best formulation was found in 10% avtur waste formulation with test value of color : 25, density : 802.4 Kg/m3, flash point : 42.5 oC, freezing point : -55.0 oC and distillation (IBP : 156.0 oC, 10 % : 172.0 oC, 50% : 194.0 oC , 90% : 225.0 oC, End Point : 257.0 oC. Based on the results of the formulation testing that has been carried out, the avtur test results formulated with ASTM standard for avtur have met the company's quality standards.

Design and modeling of a multigeneration system driven by waste heat of a marine diesel engine

In this study, a novel marine diesel engine waste heat recovery layout is designed and thermodynamically analyzed for hydrogen production, electricity generation, water desalination, space heating, and cooling purposes. The integrated system proposed in this study utilizes waste heat from a marine diesel engine to charge an organic Rankine and an absorption refrigeration cycle. The condenser of the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) provides the heat for the single stage flash distillation unit (FDU) process, which uses seawater as the feedwater. A portion of the produced freshwater is used to supply the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer array. This study aims to store the excess desalinated water in ballast tanks after an Ultraviolet (UV) treatment. Therefore it is expected to preclude the damage of ballast water discharge on marine fauna. The integrated system's thermodynamic analysis is performed using the Engineering Equation Solver software package. All system components are subjected to performance assessments based on their energy and exergy efficiencies. Additionally, the capacities for power generation, freshwater production, hydrogen production, and cooling are determined. A parametric study is conducted to evaluate the impacts of operating conditions on the overall system. The system's overall energy and exergy efficiencies are calculated as 25% and 13%, respectively, where the hydrogen production, power generation, and freshwater production capacities are 306.8 kg/day, 659 kW, and 0.536 kg/s, respectively. Coefficient of Performance (COP) of the absorption refrigeration cycle is calculated as 0.41.

Sea Water Converted into Usable and Emergency Drinkable Water

Abstract: Water could be very important for all residing beings. It covers almost 70% of earths surface. Even alevin though the principal part of earth is included via way of means of water, there's extreme scarcity of consuming water in maximum of the international locations throughout the world. Safe consuming water is crucial for all kinds of lifestyles alevin though it does now no longer offer any calories. Desalination of sea water seems as an answer for this problem. Advanced desalination technology which are carried out to seawater and brackish water show to be powerful options in a whole lot of situations. This take a look at in particular makes a speciality of upcoming traits in current desalination technology and emphasizing the alternatives supplied via way of means of them. Desalination is a way wherein the extra salts are eliminated from sea water or brackish water changing it into secure potable or usable water. Desalination techniques are labelled into thermal procedures and membrane procedures. In this bankruptcy we speak approximately special thermal procedures like multistage flash distillation, a couple of impact distillation, vapour compression evaporation, cogeneration and sun water desalination Keywords: Water management project, Desalination, Salt remova

Life Cycle Assessment for Tertiary Wastewater Treatment and Reuse versus Seawater Desalination

Wastewater reuse is now indispensable for meeting the increasing water demand, particularly under conditions of alarming water scarcity, which is now already affecting every continent. The objective of this study is to apply life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impact and missed opportunity of treating municipal wastewater to tertiary quality and compare it to conventional seawater desalination in the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries, namely: Multistage flash distillation (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED) and seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO). The study follows the ISO 14040/44 standards and uses a functional unit of 1 Mm3 of tertiary treated effluent (TTE). The modeling concept adopts the cradle-to-gate consequential paradigm. The life cycle inventory is based on fielded data collection, reports, literature and Ecoinvent database processes. The scope includes: infrastructure, grid, materials, energy requirements, chemical additives and sludge disposal; for primary, secondary and tertiary treatment. The life cycle impact assessment is applied on both the characterized and normalized levels using the ReCiPe method. Compared to distillation, TTE exhibits an average reduction of 94% in fossil depletion. For climate change and particulate matter, an average reduction of 79% and 73% can be realized respectively. The large difference is due to energy consumption in desalination, despite that fact that the energy considered is only the allocated portion to distillation in the cogeneration total, using exergy specific power consumption.

On the primary devolatilization of hemicellulose

This paper presents validation cases on a reaction mechanism for the primary devolatilization of hemicellulose called “hemi-FC.” The analysis incorporates depolymerization via random scission; charring via monomer decomposition, semichar decomposition, and thermal annealing; fragmentation statistics; and the flash distillation analogy. It predicts the yields and elemental compositions of bio-oil and char, oil molecular weight distributions, and the yields of CO, CO2, H2O, H2, and light oxygenates. A single set of model parameters accurately interprets the partitioning of hemicellulose with cation levels from 5000 to 30,000 ppmw into oil, noncondensables, and solid residue for temperatures to 900 °C, heating rates from 10 °C/min to 6000 °C/s, contact times after heatup to 1800 s, and pressures of vacuum and 0.1 MPa. The model results are generally within useful quantitative tolerances of the measured values across the domain of test conditions. Nonetheless, the commercial xylans that have been tested devolatilize at much cooler temperatures than cellulose and produce more gas and char and less bio-oil primarily because their decomposition is strongly catalyzed by excessive residual amounts of Na and Ca from the hemicellulose extraction process. These cation loadings are definitely heavy enough to grossly distort the dynamics of the spontaneous reaction channels and ultimate devolatilization behavior. Consequently, the spontaneous, uncatalyzed reaction channels for hemicellulose devolatilization remain uncharacterized even while they are bound to be prominent in the devolatilization of many natural hemicellulose forms.

Review of Thin Film Nanocomposite Membranes and Their Applications in Desalination.

All over the world, almost one billion people live in regions where water is scarce. It is also estimated that by 2035, almost 3.5 billion people will be experiencing water scarcity. Hence, there is a need for water based technologies. In separation processes, membrane based technologies have been a popular choice due to its advantages over other techniques. In recent decades, sustained research in the field of membrane technology has seen a remarkable surge in the development of membrane technology, particularly because of reduction of energy footprints and cost. One such development is the inclusion of nanoparticles in thin film composite membranes, commonly referred to as Thin Film Nanocomposite Membranes (TFN). This review covers the development, characteristics, advantages, and applications of TFN technology since its introduction in 2007 by Hoek. After a brief overview on the existing membrane technology, this review discusses TFN membranes. This discussion includes TFN membrane synthesis, characterization, and enhanced properties due to the incorporation of nanoparticles. An attempt is made to summarize the various nanoparticles used for preparing TFNs and the effects they have on membrane performance towards desalination. The improvement in membrane performance is generally observed in properties such as permeability, selectivity, chlorine stability, and antifouling. Subsequently, the application of TFNs in Reverse Osmosis (RO) alongside other desalination alternatives like Multiple Effect Flash evaporator and Multi-Stage Flash distillation is covered.

Performance analysis of operating multi-stage flash distillation unit coupled with nuclear power plant

Performance analysis of operating multi-stage flash distillation unit coupled with nuclear power plant

Recovery of dialkylimidazolium-based ionic liquids from their mixtures with acetone or water by flash distillation

In a number of applications for which novel processes based on ionic liquids have been proposed, the recovery of the ionic liquid from its mixture with a molecular solvent is a step of critical importance for the viability of the process. In this work, feasibility and conditions for such recovery by simple flash vapourisation have been explored for the particular case of three dialkylimidazolium-based ionic liquids (namely 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium thiocyanate ([C2mim][SCN]), 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([C2mim][OAc]), and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([C4mim][OAc])) and either acetone or water as representative molecular solvents of industrial relevance. The isobaric vapour-liquid equilibria of the binary systems acetone + ([C2mim][SCN] or [C4mim][OAc]) and water + ([C2mim][OAc] or [C4mim][OAc]) have been determined at three different pressures (101.32, 50.00, and 30.00 or 25.00 kPa), and the data have been suitably correlated by means of the NRTL thermodynamic model. These correlations have been used in the software Aspen Plus for the development of reliable simulations of a flash unit to perform the desired separations. The results indicate the difficulty in getting the ionic liquids recovered with high purity, even if operating the flash at a pressure as low as 5 kPa and at temperatures close to the range where the thermal stability of the ionic liquids starts to get compromised.

Predicting the rapid devolatilization of mineral-free cellulose

This paper extends the validation of a reaction mechanism for the devolatilization of mineral-free cellulose called “cel-FC.” A single set of model parameters accurately interprets the partitioning of raw cellulose into oil, noncondensables, and solid residue and oil molecular weight distributions (MWDs) for temperatures to 600 °C, heating rates from 60 to 6000°C/s, contact times to 120 s, and pressures of vacuum and 0.1 MPa. The analysis incorporates depolymerization via random scission and unzipping from chain ends; charring via monomer decomposition, spontaneous charring, and thermal annealing; fragmentation statistics, and the flash distillation analogy. Random depolymerization is responsible for the induction of primary cellulose devolatilization and eventually generates chains short enough to vaporize. The accompanying surge in the relative concentrations of chain ends activates the unzipping process. The fastest oil production rates are driven by scission plus unzipping and mediated by flash distillation. Whenever vaporization of longer oil precursors is limited, unzipping delivers monomer derivatives into the oil. Whenever longer volatile chains can freely vaporize they are no longer subject to unzipping or scission, so there are necessarily fewer monomers in oil. This is why ultimate oil yields are essentially the same across broad ranges of heating rate, temperature (given sufficient contact time at low temperatures), and pressure, and why oil MWDs shift toward heavier molecular weights for progressively faster heating rates, hotter temperatures, and lower pressures. Cel-FC interprets the optimal primary products - 94 wt% oil plus a mixture of light oxygenates, CO2, and CO in H2O – as the limit of depolymerization via scission and unzipping without any charring reactions. Monomer decomposition and spontaneous charring produce hardly any bio-char from mineral-free cellulose but are major sources of noncondensable gases and responsible for greater gas yields for slower heating rates, hotter temperatures, and higher pressures.

Comparison of Desalination Technologies Using Renewable Energy Sources with Life Cycle, PESTLE, and Multi-Criteria Decision Analyses

Nowadays, desalination continues to expand globally, which is one of the most effective solutions to solve the problem of the global drinking water shortage. However, desalination is not a fail-safe process and has many environmental and human health consequences. This paper investigated the desalination procedure of seawater with different technologies, namely, multi-stage flash distillation (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), and reverse osmosis (RO), and with various energy sources (fossil energy, solar energy, wind energy, nuclear energy). The aim was to examine the different desalination technologies’ effectiveness with energy sources using three assessment methods, which were examined separately. The life cycle assessment (LCA), PESTLE, and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods were used to evaluate each procedure. LCA was based on the following impact analysis and evaluation methods: ReCiPe 2016, IMPACT 2002+, and IPCC 2013 GWP 100a; PESTLE risk analysis evaluated the long-lasting impact on processes and technologies with political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. Additionally, MCDA was based on the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to evaluate desalination technologies. This study considered the operational phase of a plant, which includes the necessary energy and chemical needs, which is called “gate-to-gate” analysis. Saudi Arabia data were used for the analysis, with the base unit of 1 m3 of the water product. As the result of this study, RO combined with renewable energy provided outstanding benefits in terms of human health, ecosystem quality, and resources, as well as the climate change and emissions of GHGs categories.

(Invited) Electrochemical Ion Separation Based on Capacitive Deionization as Promising Water and Resource Recovery Processes

To resolve the global issue of the water crisis, capacitive deionization (CDI) has been suggested as a promising water recovery technology via electrochemical ion separation. It is considered as an alternative or competing technology for conventional water purification systems such as reverse osmosis and multistage flash distillation. CDI has attracted numerous academic and industrial attention as a novel desalination process for its unique advantages such as high energy efficiency, environmental friendliness, and a high water recovery rate.In the conventional CDI cell architectures, typically a pair (or multiple pairs) of porous carbon electrodes are used, separated by a spacer.The operation of the CDI system consists of two cycles including charging (purification/electro-adsorption) and discharging (regeneration/electro-desorption) steps. During the charging step, the porous electrode pair is charged with applied potential, and salt ions are electro-adsorbed into the electrical double layer (EDL) generated between the interface of porous electrode and water, leading to the removal of salt ions from the feed aqueous solution. The adsorbed ions are released from the electrodes in the discharging step, which is operated with reversed polarity, or short circuit resulting in a concentrated effluent stream.Since the 21st century, numerous technological advancement has been achieved and the field of application has extended thanks to the efforts of research groups around the world. In this presentation, we aim to introduce the major operating principles and research advances including electrode materials and cell configurations. Also, the various applications of CDI are briefly introduced. Finally, this presentation proposes future research directions for the scientific and industrial challenges in water and resource recovery technologies.

Application of directional freezing for seawater desalination: Parametric analysis using experimental and computational methods

Directional freezing is valuable due to their capability to provide excellent relocation of impurities away from ice crystals and thus produce higher desalination efficiency. In this work, desalination of surrogate seawater using directional freezing in radial and vertical directions of a cylindrical crystallizer was assessed experimentally and numerically. Experiments on the effect of different brine concentration and freezing direction on the salinity at various spatial locations was conducted. Moreover, a transient computational fluid dynamics model of multispecies flow which allows for solidification and melting was developed in order to simulate the experimental set-up. Subsequently, a modified model was developed to investigate the role of stirring on the solutes distribution during the directional ice growth. The developed model showed good agreement with the experimental results. The model also showed a successful directional freezing by obtaining the anticipated salinity gradient due to salt diffusion away from the ice growth layer. Performance metrics such as effective partition coefficient, removal efficiency and energy consumption of the desalination process were evaluated. Results showed that better partition and removal efficiency were achieved under lower salinity brine, top freezing instead of bottom or radial freezing, and with stirred flow versus stagnant configurations. Freeze desalination (FD) consumed less energy as compared to multi-stage flash distillation (MSH), humidification-dehumidification (HDH). The FD consumed 11.34 kWh/m3 as compared to MSH and HDH which require 24.6kWh/m3 and 123kWh/m3, respectively. Although the energy consumed in FD (11.34 kWh/m3) was more that of reverse osmosis (RO) (8.2 kWh/m3), it was relatively close.

Bio-FLASHCHAIN® theory for rapid devolatilization of biomass. 4. V.2.0 decomposition mechanism for mineral-free cellulose

According to cel-FC, the essential aspects of cellulose devolatilization are (1) Depolymerization reactions that disintegrate cellulose chains into a fragment distribution; (2) Probabilities that a given bond rupture produces a certain chain size; (3) A charring cascade that inhibits subsequent bond ruptures while bound glucose monomers decompose into progressively more refractory structures plus noncondensable gases; and (4) The Flash Distillation Analogy whereby volatile chains in the condensed phase vaporize into escaping noncondensable gases, depending on the molecular weight, temperature, and pressure. Predictions from cel-FC are evaluated with measured product distributions including bio-oil molecular weight distributions (MWDs) from mineral-free cellulose for temperatures to 900 °C, heating rates from 100 to 5000 °C/s, contact times to 30 s, and pressures from vacuum to 6.9 MPa. Cel-FC accurately depicts the impacts of temperature, heating rate, and pressure on the major products of primary cellulose devolatilization. Devolatilization during slow heating occurs at relatively cool temperatures where vaporization is limited for all but the lightest oil precursors. Unzipping circumvents this bottleneck by delivering a preponderance of monomer derivatives into the cumulative oil sample. Devolatilization at fast heating usually occurs at hotter temperatures where longer volatile chains can freely vaporize and produce an oil with relatively few monomers but abundant longer depolymerization fragments. As longer precursors vaporize, there are necessarily fewer monomers in a cumulative oil sample. This same observation explains why ultimate oil yields vary little across broad ranges of heating rate, temperature (given sufficient contact time at low temperatures), and pressure, and why oil MWDs shift toward heavier MWs for faster heating rates, hotter temperatures, and lower pressures. Cel-FC also interprets the optimal primary products - 94 wt% oil plus a mixture of light oxygenates, CO2, and CO in H2O – as the limit of depolymerization via scission and unzipping without any charring.

Development and assessment of a solar driven trigeneration system with storage for electricity, ammonia and fresh water production

This research paper designs and analyzes a novel integrated solar-driven system for ammonia synthesis, freshwater production and power generation. The trigeneration system contains a solar thermal subsystem, a thermal energy storage system where the molten salt is used as a heat transfer fluid and storage medium, a solar energy-driven Rankine cycle, a multistage flash distillation, a proton exchange membrane electrolyser array, and an ammonia synthesis unit. The proposed integrated system uses solar energy to charge the molten salt, which flows through a heat exchanger and generates steam for the topping cycle. The exhaust stream of the steam turbine provides heat for the multistage flash distillation (MFD) process. A 20 stage MFD unit is proposed where the seawater is utilized as the feedwater in this study. A portion of the produced freshwater is sent to the PEM electroylzer array for hydrogen production, which is used for ammonia production via the Haber-Bosch process. The thermodynamic analysis of the solar driven multigeneration system is analyzed through the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) and Aspen Plus software packages. The novelty of this study relies on the development of a new solar energy-based integrated system and its application for a selected community with over 10,000 residents to meet all of their needs to be self-sufficient and sustainable. Ammonia (for multiple purposes, such as fuel, energy carrier and feedstock), freshwater and electricity are the useful outputs as targeted in this paper. The study incorporates the phase change materials into the system for thermal energy storage purposes. The performance assessments based on energy and exergy efficiencies are carried out for the overall system and its components. Furthermore, the power, freshwater and ammonia production capacities are studied for better demand coverage. The overall exergy efficiency of the system is determined as 12.1 %, where the ammonia synthesis, power generation, and freshwater production capacities are 0.85 kg/s, 17.6 MW, and 143.97 kg/h respectively. Moreover, the study investigates the energy and exergy efficiencies with and without the presence of an air separation unit. The study results show that the air separation unit has less than 0.3% effect on the overall energy and exergy efficiencies.

Fresh Water Generator: A Review

This search presents a study for some types of fresh water generators FWGs, giving an overview of each type and comparing them with other types, and knowing the design criteria for different designs, as well as studying their advantages and disadvantages, including thermal desalting which types are vapor compression (VC), multi stage flash distillation (MSF), multiple effect distillation (MED), and multiple effecte evaporator, adsorption desalination, membrane distillation (MD), freezing desalination, and hydrate desalination. Then we studied the non-thermal desalination process, which includes electro-dialysis (ED), ion exchange desalination (IX), extraction desalination process, and additional types of fresh water generators FWGs.

Recent Desalination Technologies by Hybridization and Integration with Reverse Osmosis: A Review

Reverse osmosis is the leading technology for desalination of brackish water and seawater, important for solving the growing problems of fresh water supply. Thermal technologies such as multi-effect distillation and multi-stage flash distillation still comprise an important portion of the world’s desalination capacity. They consume substantial amounts of energy, generally obtained from fossil fuels, due to their low efficiency. Hybridization is a strategy that seeks to reduce the weaknesses and enhance the advantages of each element that makes it up. This paper introduces a review of the most recent publications on hybridizations between reverse osmosis and thermal desalination technologies, as well as their integration with renewable energies as a requirement to decarbonize desalination processes. Different configurations provide improvements in key elements of the system to reduce energy consumption, brine production, and contamination, while improving product quality and production rate. A combination of renewable sources and use of energy and water storage systems allow for improving the reliability of hybrid systems.

Fluoroarene Separations in Metal-Organic Frameworks with Two Proximal Mg2+ Coordination Sites.

Fluoroarenes are widely used in medicinal, agricultural, and materials chemistry, and yet their production remains a critical challenge in organic synthesis. Indeed, the nearly identical physical properties of these vital building blocks hinders their purification by traditional methods, such as flash chromatography or distillation. As a result, the Balz-Schiemann reaction is currently employed to prepare fluoroarenes instead of more atom-economical C-H fluorination reactions, which produce inseparable mixtures of regioisomers. Herein, we propose an alternative solution to this problem: the purification of mixtures of fluoroarenes using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Specifically, we demonstrate that controlling the interaction of fluoroarenes with adjacent coordinatively unsaturated Mg2+ centers within a MOF enables the separation of fluoroarene mixtures with unparalleled selectivities. Liquid-phase multicomponent equilibrium adsorption data and breakthrough measurements coupled with van der Waals-corrected density functional theory calculations reveal that the materials Mg2(dobdc) (dobdc4- = 2,5-dioxidobenzene-1,4-dicarboxylate) and Mg2(m-dobdc) (m-dobdc4- = 2,4-dioxidobenzene-1,5-dicarboxylate) are capable of separating the difluorobenzene isomers from one another. Additionally, these frameworks facilitate the separations of fluoroanisoles, fluorotoluenes, and fluorochlorobenzenes. In addition to enabling currently unfeasible separations for the production of fluoroarenes, our results suggest that carefully controlling the interaction of isomers with not one but two strong binding sites within a MOF provides a general strategy for achieving challenging liquid-phase separations.

Combined Analysis of Brine Recirculation and Top Brine Temperature in Multistage Flash Distillers

Combined Analysis of Brine Recirculation and Top Brine Temperature in Multistage Flash Distillers

Cyclic Operation of Flash and Column Flash Distillation

Cyclic distillation can increase the column efficiency that is evident from either more separation with the same number of stages or fewer stages for the same separation. Cyclic flash distillation,...