A study of a water desalination station using the SMCEC technique: production optimisation

Following the detailed study of the three modules of the Solar Multiple Condensation Evaporation Cycle (SMCEC)-based desalination unit located in Sfax, Tunisia, it was found necessary to couple the three modules, to simulate the desalination unit operation in an environment close to that of the real process and to develop a regulation scheme that would optimise the desalination production. The developed models were then reduced using the orthogonal collocation method. Based on the reduced models, several cases of numerical simulation of the unit operation have been conducted to monitor the evolution of the unit operation as a function of its command parameters and external perturbations. In this study and for the sake of optimising the desalination unit operation, a global model is developed based on which a regulation algorithm is designed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.