Evaporator

CH250 – Heat Transfer

Course Instructor : Dr. Vaishakh Nair

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 Evaporation
• Evaporation is the removal of solvent as vapor from a
solution, slurry or suspension of solid in a liquid.
• The aim is to concentrate a non-volatile solute, such as
organic compounds, inorganic salts, acids or bases from a
solvent.
• Common solutes are caustic soda, caustic potash, sodium
sulfate, sodium chloride, phosphoric acid, and urea.
• The most common solvent in most of the evaporation systems
is water.

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 Evaporation
• Evaporation differs from the other mass transfer
operations such as distillation and drying.
• In distillation, the components of a solution are
separated depending upon their distribution
between vapor and liquid phases based on the
difference of relative volatility of the substances.
Removal of moisture from a substance in
presence of a hot gas stream to carry away the
moisture leaving a solid residue as the product is
generally called drying.

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 Type Of Evaporators
Evaporator consists of a heat exchanger for boiling the
solution with special provisions for separation of liquid
and vapor phases. Most of the industrial evaporators
have tubular heating surfaces. The tubes may be
horizontal or vertical, long or short; the liquid may be
inside or outside the tubes

Short-Tube Vertical Evaporators

short-tube vertical evaporators are the oldest but
still widely used in sugar industry in evaporation of
cane-sugar juice.
Short-tube vertical evaporators consist of a short
tube bundle (about 4 to 10 ft in length) enclosed in a
cylindrical shell. This is called calandria (calandria or
Robert evaporators)
The feed is introduced above the upper tube sheet
Short-Tube Vertical Evaporators
and steam is introduced to the shell or steam chest
of the calandria. The solution is heated and partly
vaporized in the tubes
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 Classification
Evaporators are classified by the number of
effects
Single-effect evaporator : the vapor from the boiling
liquor is condensed and the concentrated product is
withdrawn from the bottom of the evaporator.
Although the operation is simple, the device does not
use steam efficiently. Typically 1.1 to 1.3 kg of steam is
required to evaporate 1 kg of water
double-effect evaporators

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 Type Of Evaporators
Long-Tube Vertical Evaporators
This is another most widely employed natural
circulation evaporator because it is often the cheapest
per unit of capacity. The long vertical tube bundle is
fixed with a shell that extends into a larger diameter
vapor chamber at the top
In this type of evaporator, the liquid flows as a thin film
on the walls of long (from 12 to 30 feet in length) and
vertical heated tube. Both rising film and falling types
are used. Tube length usually varies from 20 to 65 ft.
The main advantage of this type of evaporators is higher
heat transfer rate. The feed enters at the bottom and
the liquid starts boiling at lower part of the tube.
The LTV evaporators are commonly used in
concentrating black liquors in the paper and pulp
industries.

Long-Tube Vertical Evaporators

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 Type Of Evaporators
Falling Film Evaporators
In a falling film evaporator, the liquid is fed at the top of
the tubes in a vertical tube bundle. The liquid is allowed
to flow down through the inner wall of the tubes as a
film. As the liquid travels down the tubes the solvent
vaporizes and the concentration gradually increases.
Vapor and liquid are usually separated at the bottom of
the tubes and the thick liquor is taken out. Evaporator
liquid is recirculated through the tubes by a pump
below the vapor-liquid separator.
The distribution of liquid in the inner wall of the tubes
greatly affects the performance of this type of
evaporator.
The falling film evaporator is largely used for
concentration of fruit juices and heat sensitive materials
because of the low holdup time

Falling Film Evaporators

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 Type Of Evaporators
Vertical tube forced-circulation evaporator
Forced circulation evaporators are usually more costly than
natural circulation evaporators. However the natural
circulation evaporators are not suitable under some
situations such as:
- highly viscous solutions due to low heat transfer coefficient
– solution containing suspended particles
- for heat sensitive materials
All these problems may be overcome when the liquid is
circulated at high velocity through the heat exchanger tubes
to enhance the heat transfer rate and inhibit particle
deposition. Any evaporator that uses pump to ensure higher
circulation velocity is called a forced circulation evaporator.
The solution is heated in the heat exchanger without boiling
and the superheated solution flashes off (partially
evaporated) at a lower pressure are reduced in the flash
chamber. The pump pumps feed and liquor from the flash
chamber and forces it through the heat exchanger tubes
back to the flash chamber.
Forced circulation evaporator is commonly used for
concentration of caustic and brine solutions and also in
evaporation of corrosive solution Vertical tube forced-circulation evaporator

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 Type Of Evaporators
Agitated Thin Film Evaporator
Agitated thin film evaporator consists of a vertical
steam-jacketed cylinder and the feed solution
flows down as a film along the inner surface of
large diameter jacket
Liquid is distributed on the tube wall by a rotating
assembly of blades mounted on shaft placed
coaxially with the inner tube. The blades maintain
a close clearance of around 1.5 mm or less from
the inner tube wall.
The main advantage is that rotating blades permits
handling of extremely viscous solutions. The
device is suitable to concentrate solutions having
viscosity as high as up to 100 P.

Agitated Thin Film Evaporator

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 Type Of Evaporators
Gasketed-plate evaporator
The gasketed-plate evaporator is also called the plate
evaporator because the design is similar to that of a
plate heat exchanger.
A number of embossed plates with four corner
openings are mounted by an upper and a bottom
carrying bar. The gasket is placed at the periphery of
the plates. The interfering gaskets of two adjacent
plates prevent the mixing of the fluids and lead the
fluid to the respective flow path through the corner
opening.
The fluids may either flow in series or parallel
depending on the gasket arrangement. The heat
transfer coefficient is greatly enhanced due to high
turbulent flow through narrow passages. This
evaporator is suitable for high viscous, fouling,
foaming and heat sensitive solutions. This type of
evaporators is mainly used for concentration of food
products, pharmaceuticals, emulsions, glue, etc.

Gasketed-plate evaporator

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 METHODS OF FEEDING OF EVAPORATORS
• Evaporators are classified by the number of effects. In case
of a single-effect evaporator, the vapor from the boiling
liquor is condensed and the concentrated product is
withdrawn from the bottom of the evaporator.
• The vapor from the second evaporator is condensed and
the arrangement is called double-effect evaporators. The
heat from the vapor generated in the first evaporator is
used in the second evaporator. Evaporation of water is
nearly doubled in double effect evaporation system
compared to single effect per unit mass of steam used.
• Additional effects can be added in series in the same way to
get a triple-effect evaporator, quadruple-effect evaporator
and so on.

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12
Methods of Feeding of Evaporators

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 Performance of Evaporators
The performance of a steam-heated evaporator is measured in terms of its capacity and
economy. Capacity is defined as the number of kilogram of water vaporized per hour.
Economy (or steam economy) is the number kilogram of water vaporized from all the
effects per kilogram of steam used.
For single effect evaporator, the steam economy is about 0.8 (<1). The capacity is about
n-times that of a single effect evaporator and the economy is about 0.8n for a n-effect
evaporators.
However, pumps, interconnecting pipes and valves are required for transfer of liquid
from one effect to another effect that increases both equipment and operating costs.

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 Thermal/ Process Design Considerations
Many factors must be carefully considered when designing
evaporators.
Tube size, arrangement and materials
Heat transfer coefficients :The correlation used in the boiling and
condensation may be used here. If the evaporator operates at very high liquid
velocity so that the boiling occurs at the top end of the tube, the following
correlation may be used

Boiling point elevation (BPE) : The evaporators produce concentrated

solution having substantially higher boiling point than that of the
solvent (of the solution) at the prevailing pressure. The increase in
boiling point over that of water is known as boiling point elevation
(BPE) of the solution. As the concentration increases the boiling point
of the solution also increases. Therefore, in order to get the real
temperature difference (or driving force) between the steam
temperature and the solution temperature, the BPE must be
subtracted from the temperature drop. The BPE may be predicted
from the steam table (in case water is a solvent). 15
 Mechanical Design Considerations

• Operating temperature and pressure

• Maximum allowable working pressure
• Thermal expansion

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Thermal Design Calculation

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Thermal Design Calculation

(1)
(2)
(3)

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Thermal Design Calculation

(4)

(5)

(6)

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Thermal Design Calculation

(7)

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 Thermal Design Calculation

(8)

(9)

The procedure above discussed is applicable for forward feed evaporators. 21