Design and application of thermal vapor compressor for multi-effect desalination plant

A thermal vapor compressor (TVC) in which the subsonic/supersonic flow appears simultaneously, has been accurately designed through the CFD analysis for the various shape parameters such as the primary nozzle shape, converging duct shape, mixing tube diameter, and so on. The performance of the developed TVD has been experimentally verified to be installed in a multi-effect desalination (MED) pilot plant. In this paper, the experimental results for various boundary conditions (motive pressure, suction pressure, and discharge pressure) are presented in comparing with CFD results. The two results show a good agreement with each other within 3.5% accuracy with regard to the entrainment ratio.