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Solar seawater desalination plant with multi-stage heat recovery

Topical background

In many coastal towns and arid areas of the world, the supply of drinking water poses an increasingly urgent problem. The rise in demand for drinking water and industrial water which are limited resources entails an increase of water prices and cause political tensions between different countries already today. Due to the fact that water is scarce, numerous processes have been developed for desalinating seawater and brackish water on a large scale. Since investment and operation costs of these large plants are high, smaller plants are required which are maintenance-free, inexpensive, efficient and decentralised.

Conception of the system

Seawater desalination by vaporisation is a process which consumes a lot of energy. Since the use of solar energy induces high costs and much space, a technology saving as much energy as possible was to be found for solar desalination. This aim was achieved thanks to the principle of heat recovery with a multi-stage arrangement within the vaporisation column (see the simplified picture showing a desalination module with a flat collector, fig. 1). The bottom stage of the desalination plant simultaneously serves as first stage of the vaporisation column and as recovery basin of the distillate. The supply of heat via the flat collectors is also effected at the bottom stage. In so doing, the distillate directly flows through the collectors. As the collectors are installed underneath the vaporiser, the distillate circulates due to the natural convection. Thanks to the multi-stage arrangement of the condensation stages, it is possible to recover the condensation heat and thus to obtain an output of drinking water production which is three to five times higher than that of other solar thermal processes. This desalination system has been developed in cooperation with IBEU and Greenpeace. It is planned to launch the system on the market as soon as field tests have been effected.
The further development of this project is sponsored by RWE-Aqua / Thames Water.

Prof. Dr. Klemens Schwarzer
Solar-Institut Jülich, FH Aachen
Heinrich-Mussmann-Str.5, D - 52428 Jülich
Phone: +49/2461/993520; E-Mail: Schwarzer@sij.fh-aachen.de

Industrial survey for R&D needs in Desalination by DME

 
  
 
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