Holistic Optimisation of Solar-assisted Multiple Effect Evaporators (MEE)

The effects of heat transfer performance of systems can be studied in combination with thermodynamic performance. The design solution of maximizing heat transfer always leads to increased entropy generation else if minimizing entropy was aimed then heat transfer got minimized. Hence there is need for holistic optimization. This paper attempts to merge the two competing criteria's - (i) heat transfer and (ii) the thermodynamic performance of a solar assisted multiple effect evaporator system and optimize study parameters for its energy efficient operation. Solar assisted multiple effect evaporators use steam as source of energy to evaporate wastewater. The idea of amalgamating these two factors is to observe how much reduction in the performance of one factor will improve the performance of the other. This study couples the two criteria, which has been dealt with separately, to arrive at the parameters of interest which must be fine-tuned for ensuring system performance. Mass flow rate of steam and wastewater appeared to chiefly influence heat transfer and entropy generation of the system, negligible influence was observed on changing the concentration of the waste water or optical efficiency of the solar concentrator in single legged analysis. However through this holistic optimization study, it was found that variations in Prandtl number, i.e., the concentration of the waste water and optical efficiency of solar concentrator drastically shift the optimization balance of entropy generation and heat transfer rate.