Publication Details
Abstract
Population growth, industrialization and the resultant increase in water demand has created water shortage, which is now regarded as a global problem due to lack of water in dry regions. Freshwater constitutes only a very small fraction of all water on the Earth, and thus desalination has been a very good solution. Key operational parameters, e.g., feedwater distribution, temperature variations, brine salinity and motive steam conditions are considered by the model. The effect of these factors on the system efficiency and freshwater production was analyzed in detail. The model was proven to be effective for performance prediction by comparing its results with that of previous studies and their data, which showed a strong matching with the accuracy of model.
It is found that the feedwater distribution is optimized to increase the freshwater yield as much as possible while retaining thermal efficiency. Furthermore, the impact that pressure differences, vapor compression, and flashing mechanisms have on the overall system performance is also investigated. These results improve the understanding of how to increase desalination efficiency for both improved heat recovery as well as optimized system design. In this research, contributions are made towards ongoing attempts to develop more sustainable and energy efficient desalination systems. As a usable tool, the proposed model can be used by engineers and researchers to optimize MED-TVC operations, which may include future enhancements of the dynamic system behavior, the MEDTVC integration with renewable energy sources, and hybrid desalination approaches.