Solar Powered Multi-Stage Flash Distillation

Professional Development for Engineers

05/06/18

Ashish Raj
Problem

A recent report released by the United Nations, the United Nations world water development report
20181, the states that by 2050 almost 6 billion people will be affected by water shortages. At present,
producing 13.2 gallons per person a day, South Africa has released a statement planning to almost stop
the municipal water supply in Cape Town. Some call it “Day Zero”2.

While Cape Town might be the first city to take such a drastic measure, other major metropolises aren’t
far behind. Sao Paulo, Bangalore, Beijing, Jakarta, Tokyo, London at present are facing distressed water
supplies3. Apart from major cities, other areas of the world is also facing a drought. Yemen, Libya,
Jordan, Djibouti are some of the countries that have been affected worst by the water crisis.

There is another issue related to lack of water shortages- electricity3. Countries that lack natural
resources find it hard to produce electricity as coal is main source of energy to these power stations. The
other, more feasible alternative is hydroelectric power. For countries that have been facing recently
water shortages such as India and Kenya they had moved their ways to hydroelectric, but the water
shortage has made it more difficult for them to produce electricity. Now for countries like India and
Kenya, due to the lack of electricity it has become challenging for them to produce clean water from
filtration processes. This creates a vicious cycle that could even halt the industrial and manufacturing
sectors of the countries, a main source of their Gross Domestic Production.

Proposed Solution

Multi-stage Flash Distillation is the only method, at present that offers the potential to combine the
ability to use solar power in order to power its water purification processes.

MSF is a type of thermal desalination that involves evaporating heated brine and collecting the
condensed vapors. MSF desalination operates by passing hot brine through a series of vacuum stages, in
which the brine undergoes sudden evaporation called ‘‘flashing”. The flashed vapors condense on the
surface of preheating tubes. By doing so they produce distillate and transfer heat to the pipes that is
used to heat the pre-treated brine.

In Multi-stage flash distillation, the feed is allowed to be heated until it is just around its boiling
temperature, no boiling takes place at this temperature.

MSF (Multi-stage flash) distillation has three sections – heat input, heat recovery and heat injection, this
can also be classified under the three components of the distillation – Multi-stage flash, solar collector
and storage tanks.
The MSF stages consist of 5 separate processes or flows. The hot brine that feeds the MSF enters the
first stage (label A). The portion of this flow that does not evaporate exits as waste (label B). Seawater
enters the last stage (label C), passes through pre-heating tubes within each stage, and exits the MSF at
the first stage as preheated brine (label D). The collected distillate is passed from stage to stage, exiting
the last stage as the product (label E).

The dual-tank thermal storage system consists of two identical tanks. These tanks have the capacity to
supply the MSF with hot brine for a 24-h period. During the day, the preheated brine is circulated
through the solar array for further heating. At the same time, Tank #2 is in discharging mode, and it
supplies the MSF with its hot brine stored at TBT(top brine temperature) (label A). Both tanks are heavily
insulated to minimize thermal losses to the environment.

Solar collectors are important for active solar-heating systems. They convert solar radiation into thermal
energy. This is then transferred into a fluid (usually water or oil). The proposed design uses
concentrating parabolic collectors to focus radiation onto receiver tubes. The circulation mass flow rate
through these tubes is constant. It is large enough to keep the brine temperature from exceeding 120 C,
the temperature at which hard scale formations becomes a significant problem4.

The amount of heat supplied must be enough to raise the temperature of the brine from the pre-heated
temperature to TBT (top brine temperature). The volume of brine processed by the system every other
day of the year is adjusted according to the daily average insolation values. The daily solar insolation,
along with ambient temperature and wind speed, are obtained from typical meteorological year (TMY)
data. Using TMY data, the amount of useful heat that can be transferred to the brine is estimated for
each day of the year. The system as a whole is designed to predict distillate production as a function of
TMY data.
Analysis

A mathematical model is developed to simulate mass flows, heat transfers, and brine temperatures for
each system component in order to analyze the efficiency of the MSF stage.

Over the course of a day, brine from the sea flows into the system and its temperature is raised from
seawater temperature the pre-heated temperature. This is achieved by transferring, within the MSF,
some of the discharging tank’s thermal energy to the incoming brine. The pre-heated brine flow leaves
the MSF and enters the charging tank, where it is circulated through the solar array during daylight
hours in order to transfer useful heat to the brine.

The assumption is made that both tanks have uniform brine temperatures. At the end of the day, the
charging tank temperature is approximately at TBT. The discharging tank’s temperature nearly constant
at TBT throughout the day, although it will drop slightly due to losses. The discharging mass flow for day
can be expressed according to the previous day’s incoming mass flow. The mass of distillate and blow-
down produced each day are functions of the discharging mass flow and temperature.

The TMY weather data for a specific location provides solar intensity and ambient temperature. These
data are used within a model for the solar collector to estimate the useful heat that is delivered to the
brine. In this model, we assume that the discharging tank is heavily insulated, therefore, the
temperature of the stored brine remains at nearly the same TBT throughout each day, typically losing
around 1 °C depending on ambient temperatures. A MATLAB model implementing the entire system
was used to simulate the characteristics of the solar desalination plant. A TMY weather file for Yuma,
Arizona, was used for solar radiation4.

The peak daily feed water mass for the system is chosen to be 31.2 million kg/day, which requires a total
solar area of 552 m2.The top-brine-temperature achieved was around 90 °C, within 0.7°C. The daily
masses are shown as a percentage of the desired peak mass. The minimum mass generated, on the least
sunny day of the year, is about 35% of the peak mass. The variations in the mass and temperature from
day to day track the variations in available solar energy.
 .

The variation of daily feed water input ranged from 10 to 30 million kg/day. Distilled water production
ranged from 1 to 2.8 million kg/day. The variations in these quantities effectively track the seasonal
variations in solar energy. A common location-dependent performance measure for solar desalination
systems is the daily distillate production per unit area of solar collection. By considering total solar
collector area of 42,552m2 of the system, the normalized yield of the distilled water per square meter
per day of varies from 26 to 70 kg/m2/day.

The specific energy consumption (SEC) for any distillation system is a measure of the total input energy
required per kg of distillate produced, which describes the overall system efficiency. For solar distillation
systems, the total input energy is taken to be the solar radiation energy incident on the array. These
daily values ranges from about 95 kJ/kg to 660 kJ/kg, and the yearly average for SEC is 390 kJ/kg for the
year. The daily variations in the feed flow rate and solar input cause the large variations in SEC. The
performance of the system and the results of this study are based on the simulated results.
Economic Analysis

Following from the previous applied model, there was an economic analysis conducted in order to
consider the feasibility of project. It was found that although, the initial cost of installation of the solar
plant was significant, compared to an average desalination plant, this disadvantage is offset by the
cheaper cost of solar energy as a primary energy source.

The installation cost was divided into direct capital cost and indirect capital cost.

The direct capital costs include the main system components, building and land costs. The price for each
solar collector, MSF stage, storage tank is a function of the plants peak distillate production level.

The indirect capital costs include construction, insurance, freight, engineering and legal fees.

Using an interest rate of I, plant lifetime of n years, the standard amortization factor is found as

a = (i * (l +1) ^n)/((i+1) ^n-1)

The annual repayment amount was found by multiplying the total capital cost by the amortization
factor. The annual maintenance cost for each component is computed as a percentage of the
components’ direct capital cost. Operating cost include labor, electricity for pump operation, and
chemicals for water treatment.

The total annual cost for the plant is given by

Total cost = [(Direct cost + Indirect cost) * a] + OC + MC

Assuming that the plants average production is about 80% of its peak production and the plant runs all
year. With an average daily distilled water production of 2230 m3/day, the total cost for producing
distilled water from the solar desalination is estimated $2.72/m3 for the lifetime of the plant.

Conclusion

While there is not a shortage of water everywhere, there are some places that have been devastated by
it. This shortage of water has not only caused an impact on their personal lives but also their
professional lives as in countries that utilize hydroelectric power, a shortage of water threatens their
ability to produce electricity.

A solar powered multistage flash distillation plant could be the answer to the world’s water crisis.
Mostly because current methods of water purification involves distillation which is an energy intensive
process and many countries utilize their water to create electricity. MSF plant can break the vicious cycle
of dependence of water to produce electricity which is in turn required to produce water.

This proposal suggests that a traditional multistage flash distillation plant can be powered by solar
energy to produce clean water. A proposed model from a previous study is used as the basis. The
proposed model is then supported by other scientific journals that examine this concept and the
analysis is laid out. In order to measure its economic feasibly, the economic analysis is presented from
another study that carried out its economic analysis.
It has been found that although the initial cost of installation is substantial, around $20 million, it is
neutered by the fact that in the long run it is cheaper than using other forms of non-renewable sources
to power the plant.

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