Thermal analysis of an innovative heat pump operated desalination plant

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:170390

Site, V D ^[1]

---

1. National Research Council of Italy, Rome (Italy)

Sea and brackish water desalination can contribute to solve the problem of fresh water shortage in many and regions of the world. Nowadays most of the installed desalination plants employ distillation processes, like Multistage Flash (MSF), Multi effect Distillation (MED) and Vapor Compression (VC). VC process is called Mechanical Vapor Compression (MVC) when it employs a mechanical compressor, while it is called Thermal Compression when it employs a steam-ejector compressor. In this paper a new distillation plant for the treatment of sea water for drinking water purposes is presented. The most innovative feature of this system is the use of a heat pump as part of the desalting unit. The use of the heat pump in the proposed system enables desalting water evaporation and steam condensation at the same temperature, unlike conventional VC desalting systems where a steam compression stage is necessary. A thermal analysis of the heat pump-operated desalination (HPD) plant and a comparison between the HPD and a conventional MVC plant is presented, in order to determine the main advantages and disadvantages of the new system.

• OSTI ID: 170390
• Report Number(s): CONF-950729--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
COEFFICIENT OF PERFORMANCE
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DESALINATION PLANTS
HEAT PUMPS
PERFORMANCE
SEAWATER
THERMAL ANALYSIS
VAPOR COMPRESSION REFRIGERATION CYCLE