Abstract
The demand for more efficient energy generation is not only a prominent subject for environmental reasons but for economic reasons as well. The price of fossil fuels and government energy mandates continue to increase. Simultaneously, regions with little or no natural fresh water continue to grow in population, increasing the demand for usable fresh water. For these reasons, multigeneration desalination power plants should be investigated and developed into more advanced, efficient designs capable of supplying fresh water and power to remote, or arid regions of the world. The first purpose of this project is to point out the flexibility and versatility of multigeneration systems. Different power sources are examined to showcase the myriad of combinations that are available to accommodate any specific application. The goal is to establish a sufficient understanding of all the components— and their functions—used in multigeneration to help facilitate the creative process of designing or retrofitting advanced multigeneration systems. The second purpose is to propose a specific design for a multi-stage flash desalination system that is powered directly by the exhaust gases of a natural gas micro-turbine capable of producing around 1MW of electrical power. The goal is to numerically investigate the performance characteristics—fresh water produced per kW and the overall plant efficiency—and compare them to previous designs analyzed on a larger scale, to ultimately determine feasibility of small scale multigeneration desalting systems. Furthermore, the concept of salt harvesting through natural evaporation is considered with respect to the brine blowdown rejected from the MSF unit. It was determined that the multigeneration system can produce 56,891 gallons of fresh water per day and an estimated 4.07 tons of salt per day.