Exergy Destruction and Entropy Generation in Desalination Systems

The impetus for new tools for a comprehensive and accurate analysis of energy utilization and industrial systems comes from the need for sustainable development that could be impeded by exhausting energy sources and deteriorating environment. Exergy evaluation provides insight to achieve highest technological efficiency at the lowest cost while meeting the social and legal conditions. Desalination processes are known as major energy consumers and exergy destruction and entropy of these processes is essential for their sustainable development. This paper identifies important areas of exergy destruction and entropy generation in desalination processes including multi-effect distillation (MED), multistage flash (MSF) and reverse osmosis (RO) with case studies and offers recommendations for future efforts in research and development.