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Article history: This paper presents the preliminary field test data of a two-stage low temperature phase-change desali-
Received 18 September 2011 nation process. The process under development operates at low temperatures and low pressures gener-
Received in revised form 29 November 2011 ated by local barometric head. A two-stage configuration of this process was developed and tested at a
Accepted 30 November 2011
field site in the Puget Sound bay area of the State of Washington. The field test results proved that the
two-stage desalination process has potential for standalone small to large scale applications in water
and energy scarce rural areas with specific energy consumption of 1500 kJ/kg of freshwater. Economical
Keywords:
analysis conducted on the desalination system results in desalination costs around $3/m3 using a cheap
Low temperature desalination
Energy recovery
waste heat source purchased at $0.5/GJ. Since, most small scale domestic desalination systems are
Multi-stage operation designed in combination with a renewable energy source; when this desalination system is powered
Low grade heat source by a low grade flat plate solar collector heat source, the desalination costs are less than $7/m3 which falls
Solar collectors in acceptable range for small scale desalination systems of similar capacity.
Waste heat Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2011.11.026
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V.G. Gude et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 56 (2012) 192–198 193
Nomenclature
available in surface level and deep sea level temperatures to The Evaporation chambers are installed atop the three columns
achieve flash distillation under vacuum. The specific energy con- for each stage at a height of about 10 m above the ground level to
sumption for 1 m3 of freshwater is 8 kW h with production costs create vacuum pressures naturally in the headspaces of the feed,
around 0.65/$/m3 [17,18]. In another study, use of ambient energy withdrawal, and desalinated water columns. This configuration
harvested by low cost building roof materials was reported by Virk drives the desalination process without any mechanical pumping
et al. A roof area of 26 m2 delivered a constant energy flow of once in operation except for the initial start-up of the process
10 kW to produce 0.32 m3 of freshwater in a day [19]. In all these [23,24]. The saline water enters the evaporation unit through the
processes, the low temperature evaporation was accomplished at saline water columns S1 and S2 and the concentrated brine is re-
near-vacuum conditions in the evaporators by applying mechani- moved from the evaporation chambers through columns B1 and
cal energy through vacuum pumps. B2 to maintain constant salt concentration in the evaporation
The low temperature desalination system under development chambers. A low grade heat source (domestic hot water boiler of
in this study uses low grade renewable or process waste heat 10 kW capacity) is supplied through the heat exchanger in evapo-
sources to provide for freshwater needs. The working principle of ration chamber #1. As the freshwater evaporates and condenses on
this process is to create a natural vacuum within the evaporation the condensing surface and brine withdrawn from the evaporation
and condensing chambers, thus causing freshwater evaporation chambers, an equal amount of saline water will replenish the sal-
at low temperatures and near-vacuum pressures [20]. Al-Kharab- ine water evaporation levels. Further, by maintaining constant lev-
sheh and Midilli have presented few theoretical analyses and lim- els of inflow and outflow rates in SWT, BT and FWT, the system can
ited experimental validations of mathematical models [21–23]. function without any energy input for fluid transfer within the
Later, this process was studied on a continuous flow basis using di- desalination system. The heat input to the evaporation chamber
rect solar energy, photovoltaic energy, grid energy and low grade can be provided by low grade heat sources such as process waste
heat sources [24–26]. Technical possibility of combining the low heat, solar ponds, solar collector systems, geothermal waters and
temperature desalination process with the waste heat source from nuclear reactor waste heat streams.
a domestic air-conditioning system was studied through theoreti- The system shown in Fig. 1 operates on a principle similar to a
cal simulations to produce 108 L per day of [26]. In this study, we multi-effect boiling desalination process. Water vapors generated
have evaluated the performance of the two-stage operation of the in the evaporation chamber #1 are allowed to pass through a bun-
low temperature desalination process using a low grade heat dle of condenser tubes arranged in the second evaporation cham-
source. Economic analysis of the proposed process and other feasi- ber to recycle the latent heat associated with the water vapor to
ble process configurations for better energy utilization and recov- cause evaporation in the next chamber. The process shown in
ery are presented. Fig. 1 recycles latent heat in a two-stage low temperature desalina-
tion configuration. A water-cooled final condenser is used to con-
dense and collect the freshwater from evaporation chamber #2.
2. Development of the two-stage low temperature desalination The latent heat associated with water vapor can be recycled in as
system many stages as possible depending on the heat source tempera-
tures. The final condenser can be used as a pre-heater to the evap-
2.1. Description of low temperature desalination system oration chamber #1 to supply feed saline water at an elevated
temperature to reduce the process energy requirements. Alterna-
The physical principle behind generation of natural vacuum and tively, a tub-in-tube heat exchanger can be arranged to recover
operation of the low temperature desalination system was de- the heat from concentrated brine flow using incoming saline water
scribed in our previous studies [25,26]. A schematic arrangement in both the stages.
of the two-stage low temperature desalination system based on
the natural gravity and barometric head principles is shown in
Fig. 1. Components of the desalination system include two evapo- 2.2. Theoretical analysis of the two-stage configuration
ration chambers (EC #1 & 2), two horizontal tube condensers (in-
side tube vapor condensation), one heat exchanger (EC #1), and Steady-state mass and energy balances can be written as fol-
three barometric columns for each stage. These three columns lows for the two-stage operation of the low temperature desalina-
serve as the saline water column; the brine withdrawal column; tion process [27]. The variables are defined in the nomenclature.
and the freshwater column, each with its own holding tank, SWT, Stage I:
BT, and FWT, respectively. Mass balance on the saline water:
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194 V.G. Gude et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 56 (2012) 192–198
V.G. Gude et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 56 (2012) 192–198 195
the vacuum was created and the flow rates were adjusted between temperature of 65 °C are shown in Fig. 3a. Saline water tempera-
the brine and saline water pipelines, heat source medium was cir- tures in the first evaporation chamber varied between 55 and
culated through the heat exchanger in the first evaporator. The 58 °C and the corresponding water vapor temperatures varied be-
evaporator design was essentially a submerged horizontal tube tween 54.5 and 57 °C due to boiling point elevation difference. As it
type evaporator. A serpentine type heat exchanger was designed can be seen from Fig 3a, the saline water quickly reached steady-
for evaporation chamber #1 to supply the heat source as well as state operating temperatures within 2 h from the start-up. The sal-
to provide the evaporation surface area. The vapors generated from ine water temperatures in the second evaporation chamber also
evaporation chamber #1 are allowed to pass through the sub- rose along with the first stage and reached steady-state operation
merged tube bundle arranged horizontally at an inclination to in around 5 h. The saline water and corresponding water vapor
achieve condensation of vapors as well as to provide heat source temperatures varied between 45–47 °C and 44–46 °C as shown in
to the evaporation chamber #2. Water vapor generated due to Fig. 3a. Fig. 3b shows the operating pressures for both the evapora-
evaporation in the second stage was allowed to pass through a tion chambers. The pressures in the evaporation chambers were
water cooled condenser. 0.12 and 0.1 atmospheres in evaporation chamber #1 and #2
The detailed design parameters for the two-stage desalination respectively. Once natural vacuum was created in the evaporation
system are given in Table 1. The heat source temperatures tested chambers, the near-vacuum operating pressures were naturally
were in the range of 50–70 °C. Process parameters such as flow maintained within the system due to the barometric head columns
rates, pressures and temperatures were measured and collected and due to continuous supply and withdrawal of the fluids from
through a PLC program controller. Temperature profiles of the the evaporation chambers. However, a vacuum pump was neces-
two-stage low temperature desalination system with a heat source sary to release the accumulated non-condensable gases from the
evaporation chambers to maintain the evaporation rates. The vac-
uum pump was only used for less than 15 min daily during the
process operation. Quantity of the heat source supplied to the
Table 1
Experimental design specifications for the low temperature desalination unit.
evaporation chamber #1 and heat source temperature profiles
are presented in Fig. 3c. The inlet and outlet temperatures of the
Parameter Stage Stage heat source were 64 °C and 60 °C respectively in the serpentine
#1 #2
heat exchanger. A heat source flow rate of 35 L/min was used in
Evaporation chamber diameter (m) 0.6 0.6 this set of experiments. The heat transfer rate from the heat source
Condenser shell diameter (m) 0.2
Condenser tube diameter (m) 0.0254 0.0125
flow was between 7 and 9 kW which was calculated from Eq. (3).
Evaporator heat transfer area (m2) 1.5 1.5 Freshwater production rates from evaporation chambers #1 and
Length of the evaporators (m) 1 1 #2 are shown in Fig. 3d. The average freshwater production rate
Thermal conductivity of the heat exchanger/condenser 0.0163 0.0163 for the first stage was 0.189 L/min while the average production
tubes (kW/m °C)
rate from stage 2 was 0.16 L/min. The specific energy consumption
Intake salt water temperature (°C) 17
Feed water salinity (ppm) 26,000 for this two-stage process was 1500 kJ/kg. High quality freshwater
was produced with TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) less than 20 ppm.
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196 V.G. Gude et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 56 (2012) 192–198
The freshwater quality did not change with changes in any of the increases the heat transfer rates significantly. This enables the
process parameters such as heat source temperature. A small dif- process to operate at higher heat transfer efficiencies. The issue
ference in freshwater production rate was observed with change of scaling is minimal in the evaporation temperature range of the
in withdrawal rates as some sensible heat was carried out by the process since the problem scalants such as CaSO4 do not readily
withdrawing fluid. The measured heat transfer rate coefficients form under evaporation temperatures of 80 °C [29]. Falling film
for the heat exchanger and condensers 1 and 2 in the two stages and flash type designs have lower scaling issues than the sub-
were calculated as 1310 w/m2 °C, 1630 w/m2 °C and 1840 w/ merged type. Pre-treatment of the feed water is recommended to
m2 °C respectively for this set of experiments. As the heat source avoid fouling issues due to biological growth on the evaporative
temperature increased the freshwater production rate also in- and condensing heat transfer surface areas.
creased. The first and second stages energy efficiencies were 90% Further, the process can be modified to operate in a multi-effect
and 86% respectively. This difference was due to some of the heat flash low temperature desalination configuration principle under
recovered from the first stage was utilized to rise the sensible heat natural vacuum. A schematic of the multi-effect flash process is
of the water in the second stage.
Although low temperature evaporation requires large heat
transfer areas (25% more heat transfer area at 60 °C than at
100 °C) due to limited available thermal gradients, it allows for
use of low cost heat transfer materials such as aluminum and nick-
el cost alloys [28,29]. The cost of waste heat is much lower com-
pared to high quality waste heat and often the waste heat
sources are freely available. In addition, even if high grade heat
source is available, multi-effect operation may not be feasible for
all domestic applications due to the high capital cost and large foot
print requirements.
V.G. Gude et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 56 (2012) 192–198 197
shown in Fig. 4. To reduce the footprint of the process, the stages Total annual costs can be calculated including the capital, operat-
can be arranged in a vertical order with higher evaporation tem- ing, replacement, energy and chemical costs as shown below [27]:
perature chambers positioned at a lower level than the lower evap-
oration temperature chambers since near-vacuum pressures are Atotal ¼ Afixed þ Areplacement þ AO&M þ Aenergy þ Achemical ð12Þ
created at the top level. The feed saline water enters the top evap- Unit product cost can be calculated from:
oration chamber after recovering the heat from the brine stream
and the final condenser. The feed water passes from one stage to Atotal
the other by gravity before it is withdrawn at the bottom. This pro- Aunit ¼ ð13Þ
ðf MÞ 365
cess operates exactly in an opposite working principle of MSF pro-
cess where the operating pressures and temperatures decrease where a is the amortization factor, n is the life time of the plant, i is
progressively along the stages. Additionally for small scale domes- the annual interest rate (%), f is the plant availability and M is the
tic low temperature desalination systems, it is feasible to design quantity of produced water (kg). Energy costs include both thermal
air-cooled condensers to reduce pumping requirements for cooling and mechanical energy required for heating in the evaporation
water. Freshwater evaporated in the evaporation chamber can be chamber and pumping the fluids in the process. Pumping calcula-
allowed to pass through the finned type air-cooled condenser [26]. tions include the mechanical energy consumption for the high vac-
uum pump to release the non-condensable gases from the
4. Economic analysis evaporation chambers and the heat source and cooling medium cir-
culation. For thermal energy cost calculations two types of heat
Economic analysis was conducted on the two-stage desalina- sources were considered: (1) cheap waste heat source purchased
tion process for a freshwater production capacity of 0.5 m3/d. De- at $0.5/GJ; and (2) flat plate solar collector area of 45 m2 with a
tails of the cost parameters and calculation details are provided freshwater production capacity of 6 L/m2 d [32]. As shown in Table
in Table 2. Desalination costs are determined based on the assump- 2, the capital cost for the desalination process with a cheap waste
tion that the investment is financed at an annual interest rate of 5% heat source is $5350/m3 d, a value comparable to a recent study
over the lifetime of 25 years for the desalination system [30,31]. ($5435/m3 d) for small scale reverse osmosis systems [33]. How-
The following equations can be used to calculate unit cost of the ever, the cost of the unit increased to $11,000/m3 d
desalinated water produced from the two-stage low temperature (45 m2 @ $120/m2) when the heat source is provided by solar col-
desalination system. lectors. Since solar thermal collectors supply energy only during
Amortization factor can be calculated from the following sunlight hours, a thermal energy storage unit is required to store
equation: thermal energy when the supply is high [34]. This additional energy
ið1 þ iÞn is recovered from the TES to utilize in the desalination unit during
a¼ ð11Þ non-sunlight hours. Additional cost due to inclusion of thermal en-
ð1 þ iÞn 1
ergy storage unit, pumps and fittings is estimated at around $1500.
Thus, total cost of the desalination unit using solar thermal collec-
tors as heat sources is $12,500. Unit desalinated water costs for both
Table 2
cases are $3/m3 and $6.7/m3 respectively. Table 3a provides a gen-
Desalination cost analysis for the proposed process. eral comparison with conventional thermal desalination processes
in terms of thermal and mechanical energy requirements and their
Process unit # Units Unit cost ($) Cost ($)
specific cost range [2]. Very small desalination plants (<20 m3/d),
Evaporation chambers 2 750 1500 irrespective of thermal or membrane processes, are usually pow-
Heat exchanger 1 500 500
Condensers 2 750 1500
ered by renewable energy sources such as solar or photovoltaic col-
Centrifugal pumps 2 200 400 lectors or wind turbines. The production costs of these systems are
Vacuum pump 1 300 300 reported in the range of $1.5–18/m3 [35]. The desalination costs for
Storage tanks 6 150 900 this process fall in this acceptable range of production costs. A spe-
Valves and fittings – – 250
Total capital costs 5350
Process using waste heat
Operation and maintenance costs 10% Of capital amortization Table 3b
Replacement costs 10% Of capital amortization Desalination cost comparison with other desalination processes.
Waste heat cost GJ 0.5
Electricity cost kW h 0.1 Process Capacity (m3/d) Cost ($/m3)
Process using solar collectors Solar still 0.5–1 12–12.50
Operation and maintenance costs 10% Of capital amortization Multi effect distillation (MED, solar) 85 7–10
Replacement costs 10% Of capital amortization PV-reverse osmosis 1 12.05–15.60
Thermal storage tank (TES) 1 1000 1000 Membrane distillation (solar) <1 13–18
Pump between collectors and TES 1 300 300 PV-thermal desalination (single stage) <1 12.9
Valves and fittings – – 200 Low temperature desalination 0.5 3–7
Table 3a
General desalination energy and cost comparison with other desalination processes.
Process Stages Heat energy (MJ/m3) Mechanical energy (kWh/m3) Heat energy type Energy cost Water cost ($/m3)
Heat ($) Electric ($/kWh)
MSF 15–25 200–400 3–4 Fuel-fired 1.5–2a 0.1 <2
MED 10–15 150–300 2–3 Fuel-fired/waste heat 1–1.5a 0.1 0.75–1.5
This process 2 1500 <1 Waste heat 0.1–0.5b 0.1 3
a
$/ton steam.
b
$/GJ.
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