Heated brine flashed through successive pressure stages. Catalogued for orientation; EngiMetric models no MSF thermal or performance figures.
- Information only
- Not quantitatively modeled
Multi-Effect Distillation MED
Vapour-compression multi-stage evaporation, usually tied to a waste-heat source. Catalogued for orientation; EngiMetric models no MED thermal or performance figures.
Overview
Vapour-compression multi-stage evaporation, usually tied to a waste-heat source. Catalogued for orientation; EngiMetric models no MED thermal or performance figures.
How it works
Separation mechanism and feed window. Tolerant of high salinity and suspended solids relative to RO, provided scaling of the scale surfaces is managed.
What the process produces. Distillate of very low TDS — typically far below any single-pass RO permeate.
Energy. Thermal, dominated by heat input rather than electricity. Performance is a strong function of available waste heat.
Process sequence
Where this technology normally sits in a treatment train. The steps either side of it are documented in the Library as separate entries.
- Brine preheat
- Effect 1
- Effect 2 …
- Effect n
- Distillate collection
Typical applications
- Gulf-coastal utility plants with low-temperature waste heat
- Cogeneration integration
- Hybrid RO + thermal where the RO concentrate is also a MED feed
Main equipment
- Evaporator effects
- Steam ejector or mechanical vapour compressor
- Barometric or flash condenser
- Brine recirculation pump
Key design parameters
The parameters an engineer actually sets, and why each one drives the design. EngiMetric does not assume any of them.
| Parameter | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Effect count | Sets the thermal economy of the train. |
| Top and bottom temperature | Sets the available temperature range and economy. |
| Scale factor | Constrains how far temperature can fall effect by effect. |
| Available waste heat | Usually the reason MED was selected at all. |
Advantages
- Very low specific power consumption when waste heat is available.
- Very high product quality.
- Handles RO concentrate, which makes hybrid plants possible.
Limitations
- Capital cost and footprint are high.
- Performance collapses when the design waste-heat source is unavailable.
- Scaling in the evaporators limits the usable temperature drop.
Engineering considerations
- EngiMetric does not compute thermal economy, steam load or MED power. No such figure appears on this page.
- Any MED energy figure must come from a vendor or a published plant, not from this platform.
Status and EngiMetric support
Industry maturity and commercial status describe the technology itself. EngiMetric support and quantitative modeling describe what this platform does with it — and those two are read from the engineering registry at build time, so they cannot drift from the code.
- Engineering maturity
- Mature How established the technology is in the industry. Not an EngiMetric claim.
- Commercial status
- Commercial Where the technology sits in the market. Not an EngiMetric claim.
- EngiMetric support
- Information only No execution-registry entry exists, so no support is claimed.
- Design engine
- No Whether the Plant Designer can carry this as a configured process step.
- Quantitative modeling
- Not quantitatively modeled No engine exists, so EngiMetric states no figure for this technology.
Not quantitatively modeled. EngiMetric publishes no energy, recovery, flux, capacity or cost figure for this technology. Every quantitative statement on this page comes from your own inputs or from an external source, never from a calculation on this platform.
Because no EngiMetric engine exists for Multi-Effect Distillation, this page deliberately contains no calculated figures. Any energy, recovery, flux or capacity value you need must come from a supplier, a published plant or your own analysis.
Sources and references
- Performance data — Not modeled by EngiMetric. Use vendor or published-plant data.
EngiMetric does not publish a bibliography of external literature for catalogued technologies. Where a figure is required, it is entered by the engineer from a datasheet or a published reference, and it is labelled as an input.