Analysis Of Ocean Thermal Energy Desalination Process And Experiment

Desalination is one of the effective ways to solve the lack of freshwater resources. However, desalination is of high input, high energy consumption, and high cost. And ocean thermal energy is a clean, renewable energy with huge reserves. The utilization of ocean thermal energy in seawater desalination can save considerable fossil energy which is growing tense, and reduce the energy consumption and the cost of seawater desalination. At present, domestic and international research in this area is absent, this paper studies the ocean thermal energy desalination technology.The research contents in this paper mainly include three aspects:1. A new siphon ocean thermal energy desalination technology is proposed, a simulation model is built by ASPEN PLUS and the model is numerically analyzed. According to process simulation model, surface seawater temperature, deep seawater temperature and the flash temperature is selected as the variable parameters. And surface seawater flow, deep seawater flow and transport energy consumption of the desalination system is calculated in different variable parameters. The simulation calculation results are analyzed. The main contents of the analysis include the effect of the seawater inlet temperature and the seawater temperature difference on the system.2. Calculation model of exergy efficiency and exergy in flash room, condenser and the whole system is deduced, and the calculated results are analyzed. According to the calculation model, the exergy, exergy loss and exergy efficiency of the system is calculated in different surface seawater temperature, deep seawater temperature and flash temperature. On the basis of the calculation results, the effect of surface seawater temperature, deep seawater temperature and flash temperature on the exergy efficiency of flash room, condenser and the whole system.3. Experimental system is designed and built, and the experimental results are measured and analyzed. The experimental data of measurement mainly includes surface seawater inlet and outlet temperature, deep seawater inlet and outlet temperature, flash temperature, surface seawater flow, deep seawater flow, fresh water yield, flash pressure, and experiment time. Then the data is analyzed, and the main contents of the analysis include:effect of seawater temperature difference on sea water flow, effect of freshwater production rate on seawater flow, effect of seawater temperature difference on the heat transfer temperature difference of condenser, effect of total temperature difference on freshwater production rate.This paper test and analyze the desalination system from three aspects of numerical simulation, exergy calculation and experimental test. And the feasibility of ocean thermal energy desalination is verified from the theory and experiment. Constructive conclusions, such as raising flash temperature, increasing deep seawater temperature difference, and improve material of desalination devices, are deduced. This paper has laid a solid foundation for the further development of ocean thermal energy desalination.