Energetic and exergetic analysis of evaporation desalination system integrated with mechanical vapor recompression circulation

Abstract

Considering future crises on freshwater scarcity, a new type of industrial desalination equipment is investigated in this paper. This device is powered by electric energy to evaporate the wastewater and is environmentally friendly due to the recovery of rejected wastewater. In this paper, energy analysis is first carried out to identify the major energy-consuming equipment and the amount of electrical energy consumed in the system. The exergy analysis of the system showed that the most exergy destruction occurs in the boiler compartment and central heat exchanger. The system is designed for a tank capacity of approximately 11.3 m3, so the freshwater output is 9.6 m3, and we reported the freshwater production in every process. This process takes about 4.5 h. So the system's capacity is about 2200 lit/hour. Finally, using a two-objective genetic algorithm, the system was optimized to reduce energy consumption and increase freshwater production. Optimization results showed that 59.83 L of the freshwater per kWh generated. Keywords: Desalination system, Energy analysis, Exergy analysis, Thermodynamic optimization, Freshwater