Allocation of thermal vapor compressor in multi effect desalination systems with different feed configurations

Locating the TVC at the middle effect resulted in the best unit performance regardless of the number of effects. That is, the highest PR, lowest specific cooling water flow rate are resulting from placing the ejector (TVC) at N/2 where N is the number of effects. Changing the TVC location did not affect the specific heat transfer area, which means that the plant capital cost is not affected by placing the TVC in its optimum location within the practical range of TBT.