Effect of feed flow arrangement and number of evaporators on the performance of multi-effect mechanical vapor compression desalination systems

The current study provides a detailed analysis of multi-effect mechanical vapor compression desalination systems. Three different feed flow arrangements including forward-feed (FF), parallel-feed (PF) and parallel-crossfeed (PCF) are analyzed and compared in terms of energy consumption, exergy destruction, heat transfer area and product cost. For this purpose, energy, exergy, and economic models are simultaneously solved numerically. In this regard, a component-based exergo-economic model is used to calculate the fresh water cost. It is observed that FF has the highest energy consumption followed by PF and PCF. While, the heat transfer area is calculated to be the highest for PCF followed by PF and FF, respectively. Finally, the product cost is estimated to be 0.867 for FF, 0.865 for PCF, and 0.842 $/m3 for PF MVC systems operating with 4 evaporators.