ENCON Evaporators
1368 Hooksett Road
Hooksett, NH 03106
Phone: (603) 624-5110
Fax: (603) 627-9520

What is Mechanical Vapor Compression?

Mechanical Vapor Compression (MVC) is the evaporation method by which a compressor is used to compress and thus increase the pressure of the steam produced. Since the pressure increase of the steam also generates an increase in the steam temperature, the same steam can serve as the heating medium for the liquid being concentrated from which the vapor was generated to begin with. This makes this evaporation method very energy efficient. When this compression is performed by a mechanically driven compressor, the evaporation process is referred to as MVC (Mechanical Vapor Compression) or MVR (Mechanical Vapor Recompression).

ENCON MVC Evaporator Process Description (Refer to diagram below)

Unheated wastewater is fed to the liquid vapor separation tank (1) and is heated to a boil by the electric heating element (6).
Recirculation pump begins circulating heated water through the main heat exchanger (2) and back into the separation tank (1).
Steam flows up through the mist pad (8) to inlet side of vapor compressor (4).
Compressed steam from vapor compressor (4) is forced through the steam side of main heat exchanger (3) giving up latent heat to the counter flowing water from the separation tank (1).
High temperature distillate flows out of the main heat exchanger (3) to feedstock heat exchanger (7) giving up sensible heat to feedstock wastewater.
Upon reaching steady state, cold feedstock wastewater is fed at a constant rate through the feedstock heat exchanger (7) to raise temperature before feeding to recirculation loop.
Concentrate is periodically discharged based on temperature, conductivity or time from separation tank (1) to concentrate tank (9) through residue pump (10).

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Uses for the Mechanical Vapor Compression Evaporator

Potable Drinking Water and Potable Water Generation
Desalination
Distillation
Wastewater Recycling
Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater Minimization