Technoeconomic modeling demonstrates optimal performance in hybrid vapor compression desalination configurations, highlighting pathways to cost-effective, decarbonized freshwater production.
In this contribution, technoeconomic–environmental feasibility is explored for large-scale freshwater production via the multi-effect distillation (MED) route. Along with thermal vapor compression (TVC), its mechanical counterpart (MVC) and their optimal coupling (TVC + MVC) are introduced to retrofit with the existing MED and for a new plant. These three energy-intensified configurations are scaled up from a plant scenario prior to globally optimizing them within the framework of the genetic algorithm. To account for the impact of CO2 emission, the cost model is updated with carbon tax indices. The proposed desalination systems are further integrated with a solar device to make them self-sustainable from an energy perspective. Finally, a comprehensive feasibility study for both the solar and nonsolar configurations of the three large-scale desalinators (capacity = 400,000 m3/day) is conducted to present a clear picture that would assist to choose the best MED option with different priorities from an economic, environmental, efficiency, and productivity perspective.
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Mukherjee et al. (2025) studied this question.
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