Energy recovery technology interface between production of energy and water Original Research Article

In a context where many countries are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the use of gas turbines with combined heat and power should be encouraged. Indeed cogeneration allows to maximize the use of fuel resources and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The heat recovered can be used for district heating of cities, boiler feed water preheating or as heating media in connected processes or adjacent plants. A very interesting use of this heat is for the production of fresh water by desalination of sea water by means of thermo vapor compression multi effect distillation (MED-TVC). Therefore the project concerns the design of an experimental plant consisting of a MED-TVC desalinator coupled with a gas microturbine. The later is built on the concept of heat recovery by capturing exhaust energy. Recent technological developments result in significant savings in cost for smalls capacities desalinating plants by using cogeneration. This evolution opens considerable prospects in all the countries concerned with the drinking water shortage. Our research allowed the development of three highly efficient desalination equipments.