Mechanical Vapour Compression Modelling and Assessment in a Zero-Liquid-Discharge Desalination System

Nowadays, treating residual brine from desalination systems is an important issue for sustainable water management, where Mechanical Vapour Compression (MVC) systems are a great energy-efficient option for small-scale desalination plants. In this paper, an MVC model with TRNSYS 18 software is proposed, validated using real data from an MVC experimental system. A relevant contribution of this paper is that each component of the MVC system is individually modelled considering the challenges faced in the real experimental facility and only using input variables that are managed by real MVC plant operators, achieving accurate output results with the proposed model. Assessment of the model uses real datasets from a real MVC experimental facility in Spain, with more than 30,000 individual real values during validation. As a result, the model generated more than 350,000 values each day used for validation purposes. Comparing output variables, such as distillate production and final salinity, the accuracy of the model achieves a mean absolute error of 6.87% and relative errors lower than 2.90%. This contribution highlights the importance of using accurate simulation tools, providing valuable information to optimize MVC systems.