Title: Multiple Effect Evaporators

Author: Christian Jair Sánchez Reynel

Introduction
A multiple-effect evaporator, as defined in chemical engineering, is an apparatus
for efficiently using the heat from steam to evaporate water. In a multiple-effect
evaporator, water is boiled in a sequence of vessels, each held at a lower pressure
than the last. Because the boiling temperature of water decreases as pressure
decreases, the vapor boiled off in one vessel can be used to heat the next, and
only the first vessel (at the highest pressure) requires an external source of heat.
While in theory, evaporators may be built with an arbitrarily large number of stages,
evaporators with more than four stages are rarely practical except in systems
where the liquor is the desired product such as in chemical recovery systems
where up to seven effects are used.
Development
The multiple-effect configuration combines two or more evaporator bodies to
conserve steam, which is condensed in the first-effect heat exchanger only. Water
evaporated in the first-effect vapor body is condensed in the second-effect heat
exchanger, which provides energy for evaporation in the second-effect vapor body
(and so on for additional effects). Vapor from the last effect flows to a condenser.
The last-effect vapor body is maintained at a high vacuum with a steam-jet air
ejector or mechanical vacuum pump. The driving force is the pressure drop from
the first to the last effect.
For the same overall pressure differential and process conditions, the evaporator
with more effects will require less steam. The evaporation in each effect will be
approximately 0.7 to 0.9 pounds for each pound of steam condensed in the first-
effect heat exchanger. For the same evaporation rate, a five-effect
evaporatorsextuple-effect-evaporators will require about 25% of the steam required
for a single-effect evaporator. In actual practice, the steam economy can vary
widely because of differences in feed temperature and other energy requirements
such as heats of dilution and crystallization.
The number of effects is limited by the total available temperature difference
between the plant steam and the cooling water temperature. Process liquors with
high boiling point elevations typically operate with fewer effects.
Conclusion
Multiple effect evaporation commonly uses sensible heat in the condensate to
preheat liquor to be flashed. In practice the design liquid flow paths can be
somewhat complicated in order to extract the most recoverable heat and to obtain
the highest evaporation rates from the equipment.
The evaporator works the opposite of the condenser, here refrigerant liquid is
converted to gas, absorbing heat from the air in the compartment. When the liquid
refrigerant reaches the evaporator its pressure has been reduced, dissipating its
heat content and making it much cooler than the fan air flowing around it.
Many factors must be carefully considered when designing evaporators. The type
of evaporator or heat exchangers, forced or natural circulation, feeding
arrangement, boiling point elevation, heat transfer coefficient, fouling, tube size and
arrangement are all very important.
References
Akili D. Khawaji, Ibrahim K. Kutubkhanah, Jong-Mihn Wie, (2008), Advances in
seawater desalination technologies, Desalination 221, Elsevier, pp. 47-69.
Haves R I (1970) Development of vertical tube multi effect process (Third
Symposium on Fresh Water from the Sea, Dubrovnik) Vol. 1, pp. 275-289.