EVAPORATOR

Department of chemical
Engineering
Process heat transfer assignment

Submitted
by
Deeksha S
1RV18CH0
CONTENTS

1.INTRODUCTION

2. TYPES OF EVAPORATORS

3.PERFORMANCE OF EVAPORATORS (CAPACITY)

4.VAPOR COMPRESSION EVAPORATOR

5. REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION

An evaporator is a device in a process used to turn the liquid form of a chemical substance such as water
into its gaseous-form/vapor. The liquid is evaporated, or vaporized, into a gas form of the targeted substance
in that process.
HOW AN EVAPORATOR WORKS ?

The solution containing the desired product is fed into the evaporator and passes
across a heat source. The applied heat converts the water in the solution into vapor.
The vapor is removed from the rest of the solution and is condensed while the now-
concentrated solution is either fed into a second evaporator or is removed. The
evaporator, as a machine, generally consists of four sections. The heating section
contains the heating medium, which can vary. Steam is fed into this section. The
most common medium consists of parallel tubes but others have plates or coils
typically made from copper or aluminum. The concentrating and separating section
removes the vapor being produced from the solution. The condenser condenses the
separated vapor, then the vacuum or pump provides pressure to increase
circulation.

TYPES OF EVAPORATORS

Types of evaporators used today are:

1.Natural/forced circulation evaporator.
2.Falling film evaporator.
3.Rising film (Long Tube Vertical) evaporator.
4.Climbing and falling-film plate evaporator.
5.Multiple-effect evaporators.
Natural/forced
1. circulation evaporator.
Circulation evaporators are a type of evaporating unit designed to separate mixtures unable to be evaporated
by a conventional evaporating unit. Circulation evaporation incorporates the use of both heat exchangers and
flash separation units in conjunction with circulation of the solvent in order to remove liquid mixtures without
conventional boiling. There are two types of Circulation Evaporation; Natural Circulation Evaporators and
Forced Circulation Evaporators, both of which are still currently used in industry today, although forced
Circulation systems, which have a circulation pump as opposed to natural systems with no driving force, have
a much wider range of appropriate uses.
2.Falling film evaporator.
In general evaporation takes place inside vertical tubes, but there are also applications where the
process fluid evaporates on the outside of horizontal or vertical tubes. In all cases, the process fluid to
be evaporated flows downwards by gravity as a continuous film. The fluid will create a film along the
tube walls, progressing downwards (falling) - hence the name.
Evaporation takes place at very low mean temperature
differences between heating medium and process stream,
typically between 3 - 6K, therefore these devices are ideal for
heat recovery in multi stage processes. A further advantage of
the falling film evaporator is the very short residence time of
the liquid and the absence of superheating of the same. Not
considering the vapor separator, the residence time inside the
tubes is measured in seconds, making it ideal for heat-sensitive
products such as milk, fruit juice, pharmaceuticals, and many
others.
Falling film evaporators are also characterized by very low
                          
pressure drops; therefore, they are often used in deep vacuum
applications.
3.Rising film (Long Tube
Vertical) evaporator.
A rising film or vertical long tube evaporator is a type of evaporator that is essentially a vertical shell and tube
heat exchanger. The liquid being evaporated is fed from the bottom into long tubes and heated with steam
condensing on the outside of the tube from the shell side. This is to produce steam and vapour within the tube
bringing the liquid inside to a boil. The vapour produced then presses the liquid against the walls of the tubes and
causes the ascending force of this liquid. As more vapour is formed, the centre of the tube will have a higher
velocity which forces the remaining liquid against the tube wall forming a thin film which moves upwards. This
phenomenon of the rising film gives the evaporator its name.
Applications: There is a wide range of applications for rising tube
evaporators, including effluent treatment, production of polymers,
food production, thermal desalination, pharmaceuticals, and solvent
recovery. Aschner, F.S. & Schaal, M. & Hasson, D. (1971). “Large
Long-Tube Evaporators for Seawater Distillation. In terms of
applications within these industries, rising tube evaporators are
mainly used as reboilers for distillation columns, or as pre-
concentrators or flash evaporators or pre-heaters designed to remove
volatile components prior to stripping.
4.Climbing and falling-film plate evaporator
A climbing/falling film plate evaporator is a specialized type of evaporator in which a thin film of
liquid is passed over a rising and falling plate to allow the evaporation process to occur. It is an
extension of the falling film evaporator, and has application in any field where the liquid to be
evaporated cannot withstand extended exposure to high temperatures, such as the concentration of
fruit juices.

The main advantage of climbing/falling film plate evaporator is

its short residence time. Since the liquid feed does not remain
in the evaporator for long, this evaporator is suitable for
heat/temperature sensitive material. Thus, this evaporator is
used widely in food, beverages and pharmaceutical industries.
Besides that, the colour, texture, nutritional content and taste
of the liquid feed can be preserved too. Despite its
functionality, this evaporator has a few drawbacks such as
large energy consumption. Future development compromises
installing large number of steam effects and recycle the steam
where possible for better energy efficiency.
5.Multiple-effect evaporators.
A multiple-effect evaporator, as defined in chemical engineering, is an apparatus for efficiently using the heat
from steam to evaporate water. In a multiple-effect evaporator, water is boiled in a sequence of vessels, each
held at a lower pressure than the last. Because the boiling temperature of water decreases as pressure decreases,
the vapor boiled off in one vessel can be used to heat the next, and only the first vessel (at the highest pressure)
requires an external source of heat. While in theory, evaporators may be built with an arbitrarily large number
of stages, evaporators with more than four stages are rarely practical except in systems where the liquor is the
desired product such as in chemical recovery systems where up to seven effects are used.
Multiple effect evaporation commonly uses sensible heat
in the condensate to preheat liquor to be flashed. In
practice the design liquid flow paths can be somewhat
complicated in order to extract the most recoverable heat
and to obtain the highest evaporation rates from the
equipment.
Multiple-effect evaporation plants in sugar beet factories
 have up to eight effects. Six effect evaporators are
common in the recovery of black liquor in the kraft process
 for making wood pulp.
6.Agitated thin film evaporators.
Agitated thin-film evaporators are widely used to concentrate polymer solutions by evaporating solvents in
industrial processes. The evaporator can be operated in a vacuum, and the residence time of a solution in
the equipment can be reduced to less than a few seconds. The agitated thin-film evaporator can therefore
find wide application in food, pharmaceutical and petrochemical processes which involve the operations of
refining, concentration or deodorization. In such processes the solutions are often prone to thermal
decomposition, or have the high viscosity or low thermal conductivity, making the thin-film evaporator
even more useful. The evaporator equipment and even more useful. The evaporator equipment and its
application are described in detail by Leonald3) and Mutzenburg etc.
PERFORMANCE OF EVAPORATOR

This post provides some information about what is mean by performance of evaporator, how performance of
evaporator can be increased.

Basically the performance of evaporator depends upon its capacity and

economy. Let us discuss these terms one by one.
1) Capacity of evaporator:

Capacity of evaporator is defined as the number of kilograms of water vaporized/evaporated per hour.

The rate of heat transfer Q through the heating surface of evaporator is the product of heat transfer
coefficient, heat transfer surface area and the overall temperature drop.
Therefore  Q = U×A×T
Where
•Q = Rate of heat transfer
•A = area of the heat transfer surface
•T = overall temperature drop

The capacity of an evaporator depends upon the temperature of the feed solution. If the feed solution is at
the boiling temperature corresponding to the pressure in vapor space of an evaporator, all the heat supplied
will be utilized for evaporation, thus increasing the capacity of evaporator.
Similarly if the cold feed solution is fed in the evaporator, initially some energy will be required to increase
the temperature of the feed solution to the boiling point of the solution corresponding to the vapor pressure
 inside an evaporator. In some cases this amount energy may be very high. Thus the capacity of evaporator
will be reduced.
Evaporator Economy:

Economy of the evaporator is another important parameter which decides the performance
of evaporator. It may be defined as the amount of steam used and is expressed in terms of
pounds of vapor produced per pound of steam supplied to the evaporator train.
Following are some of the methods to increase the economy of evaporator;
a. Use of multiple effect evaporation system ( Vapor recompression )
In multiple effect evaporation system, the vapor produced in the first stage is used as
energy source (heat) for the second stage and so on. Thus increasing the economy of
evaporator.
For example, in three effect evaporator if 1Kg. of
steam is supplied to the first stage 2.5 Kg. steam is
produced.
In vapor recompression method, vapor from the
evaporator is compressed to increase its temperature
so that it will condensate at temperature higher
enough to permit its use as a heating media in the
same evaporator.
VAPOR COMPRESSION EVAPORATOR

Vapor Compression Evaporators (VCE’s) provide continuous

evaporation by mechanically compressing the vapor produced
by the system, and then feeding it back to the lamella package
as the heating source. VCE systems will maintain full
evaporation rates by sole use of energy gained by the vapor
compressor without need of continuous live steam supply.
The RDG plate design is ideal for VCE systems as proper
control of the system vapors are extremely important, and the
flexibility of optimizing the plate design allows us to precisely
balance the vapor conditions before and after the compressor.
This balance in a VCE system is critical and the reduced
pressure drop in our design is important to maximize the
efficiency of the vapor compressor.
VCE systems are a preferred option when the total evaporation
load is too small to justify a multiple effect system, but the
energy efficiency of steam recycling is an interest. VCE
systems are also ideal when installation site space is limited.
Vapor Compressor types:
•Centrifugal Compressor
•Rotary Blower
•Thermo Compressor
•High-Speed Fan
 
This evaporation process is also referred to as Mechanical Vapor
Recompression (MVR).
RE FE RE N CE S

1. "How Does an Air Conditioner Work?". Retrieved 27 April 2012.

2.^ Panagopoulos, Argyris; Haralambous, Katherine-Joanne; Loizidou, Maria (2019-11-25).
"Desalination brine disposal methods and treatment technologies - A review". Science of the Total
Environment. 693: 133545. Bibcode:2019ScTEn.693m3545P. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.351. 
ISSN 0048-9697. PMID 31374511.
3.^ Smook, G.A. (1990), Handbook of pulp and paper technology. Angus Wilde Publications.
4.^ "Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient". www.engineeringtoolbox.com. Retrieved 2018-04-30.