At a manufacturing facility outside the Spanish town of Lorquí, a 52-foot-high evaporator has steadily been constructed over the last twelve months. Now complete, the unit, which is the largest evaporation unit ever constructed by HRS Heat Exchangers, will soon be dismantled for transport and installation at its operating site.
The combined evaporator and crystallizer, which will have a total capacity of ten tons per hour once operational, has a footprint of 1,450 square feet and is designed to treat concentrated waste brine produced by an on-site reverse osmosis plant resulting in the production of distillate, which is returned as process water, and crystallized waste. This HRS evaporator unit will form part of an upgraded zero liquid discharge (ZLD) system for treating the client’s challenging waste stream and meeting local environmental regulations.
NEW HRS EVAPORATOR SYSTEM
The new system has a total weight of 59 tons and covers a total area (across all four operating levels) of 4,500 square feet. In total it includes nineteen tanks, fifteen heat exchangers of different sizes, and some 100 different lines of piping of various diameters. The system includes a pre-heater, degasser, evaporator, and crystallization sections, together with a final condenser.
In order to meet the challenging specification, including the highly corrosive nature of the sodium chloride-rich brine, which is produced by the client’s reverse osmosis system, the HRS system incorporates a number of non-standard features. Firstly, the heat exchangers have been constructed from titanium, rather than HRS’s standard construction materials of AISI 304 and AISI 316L stainless steel.
Secondly, rather than using a traditional five-effect forced recirculation evaporator, this system uses a five-stage multistage flash evaporator. The benefits of this flash evaporator over forced recirculation are that in only requires a single recirculation pump, instead of one pump for each effect, and that the pump is installed at the lowest temperature level in the loop, meaning less risk of cavitation and fewer issues with corrosion—an important consideration given the nature of the brine being handled. Finally, this design means that a lower overall recirculation rate is required, meaning less energy is required for the pumping process, improving overall process energy efficiency.
Once the brine has passed through the five-stage evaporator, the now concentrated brine is sent to a crystallizer unit, which removes the last of the distillate and produces 1,500 pounds per hour of humid crystals (at approximately 70 percent dry matter).
Once the crystals have been formed, the crystal “slurry” is transferred to the client’s mechanical separator, where the humid crystals are extracted, and any remaining saturated brine solution is returned to the crystallizer. As a result of this final crystallization stage, no liquid from this process or waste stream will be discharged from the client’s site, making this a true ZLD effluent treatment solution.
PRODUCTION, INSTALLATION, AND COMMISSIONING
Since winning the order in early 2022, it has taken fifteen months for the multi-disciplinary HRS team, led by Technical Sales Engineer Tomas Stiebe, to design the evaporator and crystallizer and construct it at the manufacturing hub in Murcia. The unit is currently undergoing final checks and testing and will then be partially dismantled for delivery to the client. It is expected to be delivered to site in May and will then be commissioned by HRS engineering staff later in the year. Once fully operational it will process 10 tons of brine effluent per hour, producing 1,500 poiunds of humid crystals and returning all distillate water to the existing client processes.
This system is the largest evaporator produced by HRS to date and builds on previous ZLD systems that the company has delivered to clients in Europe and further afield.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Matt Hale is the international sales and marketing director with HRS Heat Exchangers. Located in Atlanta, Georgia, HRS Heat Exchangers is part of the HRS Group, which operates at the forefront of thermal technology, offering innovative heat transfer solutions worldwide across a diverse range of industries. With forty years’ experience in the food and beverage sector, specializing in the design and manufacture of an extensive range of turnkey systems and components, incorporating corrugated tubular, and scraped surface heat exchanger technology, HRS units are compliant with global design and industry standards. For more information, visit www.hrs-heatexchangers.com.
MODERN PUMPING TODAY, December 2023
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