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Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology

Metal-alloys tubes are used in the falling-film evaporator of the multi-effect distillation (MED) that is the dominant and efficient thermal seawater desalination process. However, the harsh seawater environment (high salinity and high temperature) causes scale precipitation and corrosion of MED eva...

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Autores principales: Tahir, Furqan, Mabrouk, Abdelnasser, Al-Ghamdi, Sami G., Krupa, Igor, Sedlacek, Tomas, Abdala, Ahmed, Koc, Muammer
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7956725/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33668272
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13050681
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author Tahir, Furqan
Mabrouk, Abdelnasser
Al-Ghamdi, Sami G.
Krupa, Igor
Sedlacek, Tomas
Abdala, Ahmed
Koc, Muammer
author_facet Tahir, Furqan
Mabrouk, Abdelnasser
Al-Ghamdi, Sami G.
Krupa, Igor
Sedlacek, Tomas
Abdala, Ahmed
Koc, Muammer
author_sort Tahir, Furqan
collection PubMed
description Metal-alloys tubes are used in the falling-film evaporator of the multi-effect distillation (MED) that is the dominant and efficient thermal seawater desalination process. However, the harsh seawater environment (high salinity and high temperature) causes scale precipitation and corrosion of MED evaporators’ metal tubes, presenting a serious technical challenge to the process. Therefore, the metal/metal alloys used as the material of the MED evaporators’ tubes are expensive and require high energy and costly tube fabrication process. On the other hand, polymers are low-cost, easy to fabricate into tubes, and highly corrosion-resistant, but have low thermal conductivity. Nevertheless, thermally conductive fillers can enhance the thermal conductivity of polymers. In this article, we carried out a feasibility-study-based techno-economic and socioeconomic analysis, as well as a life-cycle assessment (LCA), of a conventional MED desalination plant that uses titanium tubes and a plant that used thermally enhanced polymer composites (i.e., polyethylene (PE)-expanded graphite (EG) composite) as the tubes’ material. Two different polymer composites containing 30% and 40% filler (expanded graphite/graphene) are considered. Our results indicate that the MED plant based on polymer composite tubes has favored economic and carbon emission metrics with the potential to reduce the cost of the MED evaporator (shell and tubes) by 40% below the cost of the titanium evaporator. Moreover, the equivalent carbon emissions associated with the composite polymer tubes’ evaporator is 35% lower than titanium tubes. On the other hand, the ozone depletion, acidification, and fossil fuel depletion for the polymer composite tubes are comparable with that of the titanium tubes. The recycling of thermally enhanced polymers is not considered in this LCA analysis; however, after the end of life, reusing the polymer material into other products would lower the overall environmental impacts. Moreover, the polymer composite tubes can be produced locally, which will not only reduce the environmental impacts due to transportation but also create jobs for local manufacturing.
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spelling pubmed-79567252021-03-16 Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology Tahir, Furqan Mabrouk, Abdelnasser Al-Ghamdi, Sami G. Krupa, Igor Sedlacek, Tomas Abdala, Ahmed Koc, Muammer Polymers (Basel) Article Metal-alloys tubes are used in the falling-film evaporator of the multi-effect distillation (MED) that is the dominant and efficient thermal seawater desalination process. However, the harsh seawater environment (high salinity and high temperature) causes scale precipitation and corrosion of MED evaporators’ metal tubes, presenting a serious technical challenge to the process. Therefore, the metal/metal alloys used as the material of the MED evaporators’ tubes are expensive and require high energy and costly tube fabrication process. On the other hand, polymers are low-cost, easy to fabricate into tubes, and highly corrosion-resistant, but have low thermal conductivity. Nevertheless, thermally conductive fillers can enhance the thermal conductivity of polymers. In this article, we carried out a feasibility-study-based techno-economic and socioeconomic analysis, as well as a life-cycle assessment (LCA), of a conventional MED desalination plant that uses titanium tubes and a plant that used thermally enhanced polymer composites (i.e., polyethylene (PE)-expanded graphite (EG) composite) as the tubes’ material. Two different polymer composites containing 30% and 40% filler (expanded graphite/graphene) are considered. Our results indicate that the MED plant based on polymer composite tubes has favored economic and carbon emission metrics with the potential to reduce the cost of the MED evaporator (shell and tubes) by 40% below the cost of the titanium evaporator. Moreover, the equivalent carbon emissions associated with the composite polymer tubes’ evaporator is 35% lower than titanium tubes. On the other hand, the ozone depletion, acidification, and fossil fuel depletion for the polymer composite tubes are comparable with that of the titanium tubes. The recycling of thermally enhanced polymers is not considered in this LCA analysis; however, after the end of life, reusing the polymer material into other products would lower the overall environmental impacts. Moreover, the polymer composite tubes can be produced locally, which will not only reduce the environmental impacts due to transportation but also create jobs for local manufacturing. MDPI 2021-02-24 /pmc/articles/PMC7956725/ /pubmed/33668272 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13050681 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tahir, Furqan
Mabrouk, Abdelnasser
Al-Ghamdi, Sami G.
Krupa, Igor
Sedlacek, Tomas
Abdala, Ahmed
Koc, Muammer
Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology
title Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology
title_full Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology
title_fullStr Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology
title_full_unstemmed Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology
title_short Sustainability Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis of Thermally Enhanced Polymer Tube for Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) Technology
title_sort sustainability assessment and techno-economic analysis of thermally enhanced polymer tube for multi-effect distillation (med) technology
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7956725/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33668272
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13050681
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