Thermodynamic Modeling and Experimental Validation of Vacuum Cooling Crystallization for Zero Liquid Discharge Desalination

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran

Abstract

In recent years, in addition to reducing the amount of water resources, strict rules and regulations regarding the wastewater of industrial units that are destructive to the environment have caused more emphasis on processes with higher water recovery. Therefore, the improvement and thermal analysis of zero liquid discharge processes are important issues for researchers. This work studies a crystallizer system with forced circulation in the thermal ZLD, where fresh water is produced by desalination of high-salinity water. The research's innovation and goal are the thermodynamic and experimental investigation of the effects of the incoming effluent flow and the energy consumption of the heat exchanger on the rate of freshwater production, recovery ratio, output slurry rate, and solid salt production. First, modeling of the thermodynamic process in a steady state has been done. Then, a crystallizer is built on a laboratory scale and the results of the model are compared and validated with the obtained experimental data. The effect of feed temperature and heat consumption of the heat exchanger on the performance coefficient of the system was investigated. The best design point, which represents the highest performance of the system, is obtained for the feed temperature of 40°C and heat consumption of 6.7 kW for freshwater rate of 10.25 kg/hr, which represents a specific energy consumption of approximately 0.65 kWh/kg.

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Main Subjects

References

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Amirkabir Journal of Mechanical Engineering
Volume 57, Issue 1
2025
Pages 25-42

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