Advanced Solar Desalination for Tourism Industry in Cyprus (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Engineering - General, grade: 1, , language: English, abstract: Despite the fact that global water is apparently abundant, almost half of the world faces the water scarcity especially in the Mediterranean and North African regions. The main purpose of this work is the assessment of Multiple Effect Distillation, a thermal desalination technique in water stressed countries in the Mediterranean region.

The thesis describes a case study for desalination plant solution of capacity 900 m3/d for a hotel location in Cyprus. The study features plant design and the performance data ensuring low specific electrical and thermal energy consumption. A detailed mathematical model is developed for the 8 - effect desalination plant which is based on the mass and energy balances for the streams flowing through each stage of the MED unit. The performance of the desalination can be predicted. An improved model for the desalination technology can be suggested by installing an additional unit called as thermo - vapour compressor. The Gained Output Ratio (GOR) and specific thermal energy consumption values of 13.6 and 40.1 kWhth/m3 respectively are obtained from the improved model.

The plant can be operated throughput the year by implementing an innovative technique of sea water preheating. This helps in achieving the required brine feed temperature of about 43 - 48 °C. The improved plant model is assessed by a simulation software, DEEP. The Mediterranean region has huge potential in renewable energy especially in solar thermal energy. A medium temperature parabolic trough collector operat-ing at 180 °C will be used to supply the steam for desalination plant. With the fossil fuels powering most of the desalination plants, the use of solar thermal energy can be a clean and sustainable option and an ideal benchmark for the future renewable desalination plants.