Thermoeconomic study of a system for pollutant concentration with mechanical vapour compression

The concentration with mechanical vapour compression (MVC) is one of the techniques recommended commonly in the industry for advantages that consist mainly in low consumption of electricity. Several books are talking about the comparative study of energy and economic costs of the equipped installations, and general comparison with other technical processes of concentration such as thermocompression or concentration with multiple effects. We present in this paper a thermoeconomic modelling based on the energy balances for an installation of concentration with MVC located on the site of EDF (Les Renardières, France) according to two kinds of model (linear models and power models) and optimizing the costs as a function of the temperature difference in evapo-condenser (main component of the concentration by evaporation system). Validation of the proposed model is favourable on the existing installation studied, the proposed model for costs could be useful to design new ones. Sensitivity study to the main design parameters has been performed.