Improvements in heat transfer in thermal desalination operation based on removal of salts using ultrasound pretreatment

•Intensified salt precipitation based on the use of ultrasound.•Demonstrating an effective approach for scale control in thermal desalination.•Understanding effect of ultrasound operating parameters.•Fundamental study based on the SEM-EDX analysis of the scale formation.•Improvements in heat transfer rates also demonstrated for actual sea water. Scaling is a major problem in the thermal desalination operation which is mainly attributed to the deposition of salts on the tube, thereby increasing the resistance to heat transfer. To reduce or prevent the formation of scale on heat transfer surfaces, treating desalination concentrates and precipitating sparingly soluble salts can be a promising method. In the present work, the effect of ultrasound pretreatment to the synthetically prepared sea water as desalination feed has been investigated with an objective of intensifying salt removal process and avoiding scale formation leading to better heat transfer rates. A lab scale double pipe heat exchanger setup was designed and operated under simulated conditions of the thermal desalination operation. Total operational volume of 2000 ml was used for all experiments with a fixed flow rate of 5 ml/s. To understand the process of scaling, synthetic seawater was prepared as per the ASTM D 1141-98 and was used for scale deposition experiments. The experiments conducted using untreated synthetic seawater confirmed substantial scaling and drop in the heat transfer coefficient from an initial value of 776 W/m2 K to 603 W/m2 K (about 22%) after 24 h operation as compared to deionized water. SEM-EDX analysis was performed to investigate the morphology and main components of the scale. Subsequently, synthetic seawater was treated with ultrasound under continuous flow condition for removal of salts responsible for scaling. It was demonstrated that pretreatment resulted into salt crystallization, after which, the crystals were separated and the filtered solution was passed through the heat exchanger to check the effects on heat transfer rate. It was confirmed that the heat transfer rate was found to be higher with a value of 797 W/m2 K. Overall an effective approach based on ultrasound to remove the scale forming components has been demonstrated with established best conditions as 70% amplitude for 30 min of irradiation at fixed frequency of 20 kHz and 50% duty cycle.