Principles of Freezing-

Melting Process
First we could analyze the natural process of water freezing to ice in seas and rejecting salts at the
interface. The combined heat trans-fer associated with heat removal by the environment, and
latent heat release at the water-ice interface results in natural convection fl ows of water. Freezing
seawater releases fl uid at the water-ice interface, which is denser that the ambient water. The
resulting solute buoyancy force therefore acts downward in addition to the thermal buoyancy
force. Flow visualization revealed that the fl ow was downward, below the freezing surface; and
convection heat transfer was strongly affected by solute rejection upon freezing [5].In a FM
process, fi rst the solution is partially frozen, the ice crystals are physically separated from residual
solution (i.e. concentrated solu-tion), and the ice is melted to form the product water. The FM
process is accomplished in two major stages: ice crystallization (Stage I), and separation and
melting (Stage II) (Figure 10.1). In stage I, nucleation occurs at a suitable supercooling
temperature. The nuclei in solution grow to become large ice crystals in a crystallization unit. In
stage II, the crystals are separated from the concentrate by a separator (mechani-cal) and then
melted to produce pure water. In some cases, a precool-ing step is used on the feed, which
reduces heat load in the freezer,

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277706820_Freezing-Melting_Desalination_Process

Congelación con ayuda de un agente refrigerante: Se utiliza un refrigerante auxiliar cuya

tensión de vapor sea netamente superior a la del agua y que no sea miscible con ella. El
butano satisface estas condiciones. El agua de mar se congela parcialmente por la
expansión del butano. Este procedimiento evita los problemas de compresión de la
congelación del vacío.

La desalinización mediante este proceso supera a la destilación ya que se necesita menos

energía para congelar el agua que para evaporarla, y en que no hay formación de
depósitos minerales en las máquinas, como ocurre cuando se debe llegar a altas
temperaturas. De esta manera se ahorra energía y dinero.