Multi-Effect Evaporator

A multi-effect evaporator adapted for distillation of water, comprising a plurality of effects connected in a series manner and arranged into groups including a most upstream group and subsequent downstream groups, each group having a most upstream effect and a most downstream effect and having a common parallel water feed inlet adapted to supply all effects in said group with feed water;

• the evaporator further including a main feed water line in fluid communication with the most upstream group;
• an array of heaters disposed along said line and adapted for heating said feed water before its entry into the effects of the most upstream group;
• each effect comprising heat transfer means adapted to receive an inlet vapor and produce from the feed water a first outlet vapor, leaving the remainder of the feed water as a concentrate, and to condense a part of the inlet vapor to produce distilled water, leaving the remainder of the inlet vapor as a second outlet vapor;
• each effect further comprising means for forwarding the first outlet vapor into an adjacent downstream effect, where it will constitute said inlet vapor, and means for forwarding said second outlet vapor into one of said heaters for heating said feed water thereby;
• each group further comprising a pump adapted to extract the concentrate from the effects of said group and pump it into the common parallel water feed of an adjacent downstream group;
• and means for collecting the distilled water.