Technoeconomic study of a novel integrated thermal MSF-MED desalination technology

This work presents a novel integrated MSF-MED thermal desalination technology and its techno-economics as compared to conventional systems such as MSF-BR, MED-TVC, MSF-OT-LT and plain MED. The new integrated MSF-MED benefits from (i) high top brine temperature (TBT) of natural dilution seawater feed of the once through (MSF-OT), (ii) lower pumping power of long tube MSF-LT, and (iii) the low heating steam quality and cost of MED. The process calculation showed that the pumping power of the integrated MSF-MED is 58% lower than that of the traditional MSF-BR while it is 16%, lower than that of MED-TVC. The cost analysis showed that at subsidized oil price of 12 $/bbl, the unit water cost of the integrated MSF-MED is 32% lower than that of MSF-BR and 21% lower than that of MED-TVC. The unit water cost of the integrated MSF-MED is the lowest value when the oil price is lower than 40 $/bbl. This result showed the superiority of the integrated MSF-MED configuration for GCC countries since the oil price is generally subsidized. It also has a chance to utilize a diverse available energy such as waste heat and steam from backpressure or condensing turbine. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.