Objective
The project has three main aims :
1. the improvement of the economics of solar desalination, namely desalination of water through operation of solar ponds;
2. the demonstration of thermal performance, maintenance and chemicals requirements, reliability and overall costs of a full-titanium desalinator, through operation of a plant of meaningful size, in order to disseminate the technology of full-titanium desalinators in the electric-energy production industry, for utilization in co-generation units;
3. the improvement of knowledge regarding the industrial-size utilisation of heat recovery from highly corrosive fluids.
The design, construction and installation phases have been completed. The experimental campaign and data analysis and the activities for adaptation of the solar pond site for the monitoring of the desalination are presently being carried out.
The project concerns the design, optimisation, construction, assembling, start-up and extensive monitoring of a full-titanium desalinator. It is the first full-titanium desalinator in the world, with a meaningful size and fed by a high salinity heating fluid. The operation tests will take place at the site of the Solar Pond of Universtity of Ancona, Italy (625 m²). Data collected during manufacturing tests and most of all during the start-up and the operation of the plant, under manufacturing tests and most of all during the start-up and the operation of the plant, under various conditions and alignments, will be useful for the improvement of the know-how on heat recovery with highly corrosive media, on co-generation plants aimed at producing electricity and fresh water, on desalination fed by solar energy. A main output of the project is the assessment of data which allow to compare the additional cost of the full titanium desalinator with respect to a traditional technology one, with the benefits of :
- a better heat transmission through tube bundles, which means a better performance,
- a reduced requirement of chemicals and of maintenance activities,
- an improved plant reliability and duration. A careful fluid dynamic analysis of the failing fluid on the tube bundles will be performed during the first phase of the design activity, in order to maximise the improvement of heat transfer
coefficient due to reduced fouling, and therefore the improvement of heat performance. Preliminary calculations and tests allow to foresee the possibility of reaching - as a realistic target- a heat performance of 750 kjoule/kg of distillate, averaged during the operation of the plant, with a 3 stage full-titanium desalinator, to be compared with a standard technology desalinator with same number of stages and operating conditions. This means the possibility of reducing the overall tube bundle surface of the titanium desalinator by a factor 1.2 (=900/750), in order to obtain the same productivity of the 3-stage titanium desalinator with respect to a 3-stage traditional desalinator, and to use the 20% of margin by adding a new stage to the desalinator, which will be a 4-stage multiple effect desalinator. The heat performance of this desalinator will be, as a consequence, 620 kJ/kg.
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
DEM - Demonstration contractsCoordinator
00186 Roma
Italy