San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization

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Technology Tuesdays: Mechanical and Thermal Vapor Recompression

Hello Partners!

You may be wondering what Mechanical and Thermal Vapor Recompression is.  It sounds extremely complicated, but the concept is actually very simple.  It means to recapture thermal and vapor waste heat energy and reuse it.  Simple enough, right?

Generally, when low-pressure steam is generated from processes such as evaporators or cookers, this “waste heat” is vented out into the atmosphere or condensed in a cooling tower.  Alternatively, vapor recompression can be used to recover this low-pressure waste steam to be utilized in other processes.  This saves a tremendous amount of energy.  In fact, vapor recompression only uses about 5%-10% of the energy required to produce an equivalent amount of steam by heating in a boiler.

So, is there a difference between mechanical vapor recompression and thermal vapor recompression? The answer is yes!

Thermal vapor recompression utilizes a jet stream.  This jet stream raises the temperature and pressure via a process called momentum transfer.  Mechanical vapor recompression, on the other hand, utilizes a compressor to achieve the same outcome.

Either process offers energy savings in process industries such as evaporation and distillation.  Wherever you have industrial applications, implementing this technology could be a great way to reduce energy use and, subsequently, money!

Keep an eye out for more ways to save!

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Sources:
https://thermalkinetics.net/why-mechanical-vapor-recompression/
https://me-trading.de/mvr-vs-tvr-evaporators-advantages-and-disadvantages/
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/05/f16/steam11_waste_steam.pdf