Developments in Multiple Effect Evaporation 149
- Decrease of the available flow area inside the tubes, which causes increase in the pressure drop and pumping energy, and
- Increase of the thermal resistance for heat transfer. This reduces the heat transfer efficiency, which results in a lower product flow rate.
Figure 2 shows variation in the solubility of calcium sulfate as a function of concentration and temperature. The diagrams illustrate solubility limits of calcium sulfate compounds as well as variations in the temperature- concentration profiles in the three MEE conjBgurations. These profiles are given for the seawater and brine during their flow in the system preheaters and evaporators.
In the backward feed, the seawater is introduced into the last effect, which has the lowest temperature and pressure within the system. The brine flows through successive effects towards the first effect. The increase in the pressure and temperature across the effects dictates the use of brine pumping units between the effects.
This feature is a major disadvantage in the backward system; because of the increase in the pumping power, maintenance cost, and the increase in air leakage point through pump connections. The second disadvantage of the system is shown on Fig. 2c, where the brine with the highest concentration is subjected to the highest temperature in the system. As is shown, the temperature- concentration profile crosses the solubility limits for the calcium sulfate. The above two factors make the backward feed configuration inapplicable to seawater desalination.
Some examples for industrial applications of the parallel feed MEE can be found in literature, Temstet et al. (1995) and Temstet et al. (1996). Figures Ic shows a system schematic and Figs. 2a and 2b show the temperature- concentration profile in the parallel feed system. In this configuration, the feed seawater is divided into a set of parallel streams, which are fed into individual effects. In each effect the feed seawater is heated to the effect saturation temperature, before evaporation commences. The main advantage of the parallel feed configuration is the simplicity of its configuration in comparison with the other two layouts.
The main feature of the forward feed system is the ability to operate at high top brine temperatures, El-Dessouky et al. (1998). Detailed evaluation of this system is given in the next sections.