A novel design of multilevel disk-type axial flux eddy current heating (AFECH) device: A sustainable approach for feed water heating in reverse osmosis desalination.

Feed water temperature has a role in controlling the specific energy consumption (SEC) of reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants. Higher feed water temperatures result in lower SEC values, making management of temperature a key consideration for optimum energy efficiency in RO desalination. This paper introduces an Axial Flux Eddy Current Heating (AFECH) device to increase the temperature of feed water with the help of eddy currents. A 3D model of AFECH is designed and developed in ANSYS to analyze the magnetic characteristics, heat flux, and temperature on the aluminum plate. A hardware setup is designed to prove the concept of AFECH. Different observations are tabled for different rotor speeds. The design of AFECH is extended into a more practical approach, and this paper proposes a novel design of a multilevel disk-type AFMECH device. Based on the observations, multilevel disk-type AFMECH has raised the temperature of feed water from 29 to 60 °C. Based on the comparison between normal RO desalination and RO with a multilevel disk-type AFMECH system, the specific energy consumption has observed to be decrease from 1.16 to 0.6213 kWh/m3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]