Pilot testing of a novel Multi Effect Distillation (MED) technology for seawater desalination

Shahzada Aly, Husnain Manzoor, Simjo Simson, Ahmed Abotaleb, Jenny Lawler, Abdel Nasser Mabrouk*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

52 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This work presents an improved evaporator design of the Multi Effect Distillation (MED) to minimize the thermal losses and footprint of the evaporator. An advanced modular MED pilot plant has been installed with a nominal capacity of 25 m3/day to validate the concept under a seawater salinity of 57,500 ppm (Dukhan Coast, West of Qatar), at the top brine temperature of 65 °C. Both the pilot testing and the simulation results confirm the features of the novel design of the MED. By implementing this invention's design, the heat transfer area has been decreased and accordingly, the capital cost of the evaporator is reduced by 20%. The tube arrangement with new vapor route allows the removal of the traditional demister, which accordingly reduces the footprint of the desalination plant by 65%. The sieve tray for spraying the seawater over the rectangular and inline tube bundle creates a uniform wettability. The improved design also discloses the utilization of an online vent water-ejector, for vent out of the non-condensable gases (NCGs). The novel evaporator design based low temperature MED technology, shows a potential solution for the industrial applications of high salinity byproduct and solar desalination.

Original languageEnglish
Article number115221
JournalDesalination
Volume519
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2022

Keywords

  • Desalination
  • Multi-Effect Distillation
  • Novel evaporator
  • Pilot plant
  • Techno-economics

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