Nuclear Desalination

19.

NUCLEAR DESALINATION

INTRODUCTION

This chapter briefly covers the work recently done in the field of nuclear desalination. The 300 MWe Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) being developed in BARC has a make up water requirement of about 360m3/day. This make up water has to be DeMineralised (DM) water. Conventional technology exists for producing DM water from raw water. But, to meet this high requirement of AHWR, the conventional method will not be cost effective. As such, there is a need to develop new technologies for DM water production to satisfy the make up water need of the AHWR. The Desalination Division of BARC has come up with a Low Temperature Multi Effect Desalination Plant (LT-MED) using low temperature steam, which would produce 500m3 of DM water every day.

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Nuclear Desalination

BARC is setting up 300 MWe Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). Make up requirement of DeMineralized (DM) water for this reactor is about 360m3/day. The conventional DM system raw water is used to produce DM water at an exorbitant cost. Desalination of seawater is one of the options that can be used to meet the requirements of DM water for the reactor. AHWR uses seawater for condenser cooling. A small fraction of this seawater can be taken as feed for desalination plant.

producing 500 m3/day DeMineralised (DM) water for in-house requirement as shown below.

One important feature of the LT -MED desalination technology is that it can produce high purity water from highly saline seawater. This process requires minimum pretreatment and is eco-friendly. Another important factor is that it operates with low pressure steam extracted from the LP turbine of power plant which results in negligible loss of power. In addition to

19.1 LT-MED DESALINATION PLANT UTILIZING LOW PRESSURE STEAM AVAILABLE FROM THE LP TURBINE OF AHWR
A Low Temperature Multi Effect Distillation (LT -MED) desalination plant, utilizing low pressure steam @ 0.95 bar available from the LP turbine of AHWR, is proposed to be integrated with the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) for

utilization of low pressure steam, sharing of common facilities for seawater intake and reject and operation and maintenance will drastically reduce the production cost of DM water. This high quality water can be used by AHWR for DM water make up with minor polishing and reduce load on the ion-exchangers bed (demineraliser) thereby cutting down the use of regeneration chemicals which pollute to the environment. An other use of this high quality water is that it can be mixed with the existing

Conceptual scheme of proposed LT-MED based desalination plant with AHWR.

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Nuclear Desalination

Schematic process flow diagram of proposed LT-MED desalination plant for AHWR.

brackish

water

in

suitable

proportion,

thereby

generated in the effects are reused in the succeeding effects as heating medium. The effects are maintained at a lower pressure than the preceding effect. The vapors generated in the last effect are condensed in the final condenser. Condensate from all the effects is collected as product water. Figure below shows the schematic flow diagram of the LT-MED Desalination Plant for AHWR.

augmenting the availability of potable water. The LT-MED plant is a 4-effect low temperature desalination plant having Horizontal Tube Thin Film (HTTF) type of evaporators. Low-pressure steam is used in the tube side as heating medium. Feed seawater is sprayed on the outside of horizontal tubes by spray nozzles forming a thin film of seawater. Nucleate boiling takes place on the outside of the tubes. This type of boiling is more efficient than pool boiling due to heat transfer through, thin film of seawater and absence of any hydrostatic head over the boiling liquid. This results in high heat transfer coefficients and heat transfer is possible with low temperature differences. An intermediate heat exchanger is used as an isolation barrier to eliminate any probability of radioactive contamination and generate low pressure steam for use in the desalination plant. Low-pressure steam from the isolation heat exchanger is used in the first effect as heating medium. Vapors

19.2

LT E D E S A L I N AT I O N P L A N T U T I L I Z I N G WASTE HEAT FROM MHT PURIFICATION CIRCUIT OF AHWR.

The design of AHWR incorporates several features to simplify the design and to eliminate certain systems and components, so as to make it economically competitive with other available options for power generation. Utilization of waste heat by using desalination is one such feature of AHWR. A proposal to utilize waste heat from Main Heat Transport (MHT) purification circuit

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Schematic process flow diagram of the proposed LTE desalination plant for AHWR.

to produce high quality desalinated water by Low Temperature Evaporation (LTE) process has been envisaged. In AHWR Main Heat Transport (MHT) purification system process water @ 33.3 kg/s at 259 oC and at 70 bar is cooled to 42 OC and at 10 bar before passing it through the purification filters and ion exchange columns. Purification flow is cooled up to 100C in regenerative heat exchangers and 23 MWth heat is recovered by purification return flow to MHT. Further cooling up to 42C is done by transferring heat to process water in non-regenerative cooler in the present design. This cooling results in loss of 8 MWth heat to process water. Considering this, it is felt that a part of this waste heat can be utilized for producing the desalted water. It is possible to utilize this heat for desalination purpose in AHWR for producing about 250 m3/day desalted water for the reactor make up and plant utilization. Around 5 MWth heat (from 100C to 64C) can be utilized from MHT purification flow for desalination purpose. Figure shows the schematic process flow diagram of the proposed LTE desalination plant for AHWR.

V.K. Srivastava, <vksriv@barc.gov.in>

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