Processes and systems suitable for purifying or otherwise treating liquids to remove contaminants therein, including but not limited to contaminated water, to permit reclaiming, recycling, and reuse of the liquids. Such a process and system entails the use of a cascading distillation system that evaporates a liquid from the feedstock and then condenses and collects a more purified form of the liquid. The cascading distillation system can be operated to selectively process the feedstock through any of a series of vessels at which different amounts and/or contaminants may be removed from the feedstock.

This invention discloses an approach for the separation of the close-boiling mixture of polyols. The raw material is ethylene glycol containing miscellaneous polyols (such as 1,2-propylene glycol and 1,2-butanediol). Over an acid catalyst, these miscellaneous polyols, through (1) a dehydration reaction, (2) pinacol rearrangement, and (3) acetalization or ketalization reaction, are converted into aldehydes (small amounts), acetals, and ketals (trace amount), which are simultaneously and readily separated via distillation. Meanwhile, after the reaction, the mixture is further separated to obtain an ethylene glycol product at a high purity. The invention provides a technique to remove the miscellaneous polyols from ethylene glycol via liquid-phase dehydration reactions under mild conditions, with low energy consumption. In particular, this approach is markedly effective for the removal of 1,2-butanediol that is difficult to be removed via conventional techniques. The purity of the resulting ethylene glycol product is high, and value-added acetals or ketals are co-produced.

Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for water purification and desalination. The systems have a preheater, a degasser, multiple evaporation chambers with demisters, heat pipes, and a control system, wherein the control system permits continuous operation of the purification and desalination system without requiring user intervention or cleaning. The system is capable of recovering heat from each distillation stage, while removing, from a contaminated water sample, a plurality of contaminant types including: microbiological contaminants, radiological contaminants, metals, salts, volatile organics, and non-volatile organics.

A feed liquid flows into a second-stage humidifier chamber to form a second-stage humidifier bath. A first remnant of the feed liquid from the second-stage humidifier chamber then flows into a first-stage humidifier chamber to form a first-stage humidifier bath having a temperature lower than that of the second-stage bath. A second remnant of the feed liquid is then removed from the first-stage humidifier. Meanwhile, a carrier gas is injected into and bubbled through the first-stage humidifier bath, collecting a vaporizable component in vapor form from the first remnant of the feed liquid to partially humidify the carrier gas. The partially humidified carrier gas is then bubbled through the second-stage humidifier bath, where the carrier gas collects more of the vaporizable component in vapor form from the feed liquid to further humidify the carrier gas before the humidified carrier gas is removed from the second-stage humidifier chamber.

The hydrogen-powered desalination plant is a multi-stage flash desalination system using hydrogen fuel to power the top brine heater of the plant. The hydrogen-powered desalination plant includes a plurality of flash distillation stages, which each include a flash chamber and a condenser. The top brine heater in the hydrogen-powered desalination plant is powered by the carbon-free combustion of hydrogen gas with oxygen gas. The combustion of the hydrogen gas with the oxygen gas creates a flame, which is used directly to generate steam from atomized seawater, any seawater not converted to steam being collected as preheated brine and passed to the multi-stage flash desalination system for successive stages of flash distillation. Preferably, the flame is generated as a vortex.

An apparatus, system and method to remove purified vapor from a contaminated fluid including a modified heat exchanger. The heat exchanger comprising an inlet wherein contaminated fluid flows in the heat exchanger through the inlet; at least two outlets wherein a first outlet exits purified vapor and a second outlet wherein contaminated fluid with a portion removed as purified vapor exits the apparatus; an energy source that causes the contaminated fluid to heat to a temperature wherein at least a portion of the contaminated fluid is converted to purified vapor; at least two different flow paths from at least one inlet to the first outlet and second outlet, the first and second flow paths flow through at least a portion of the apparatus wherein differences causes the lighter purified vapor to take a different path than the heavier contaminated with the purified vapor exiting the first outlet and the contaminated fluid exiting the second outlet.

A method for recovering base oil from waste lubricating oil by separating base oil range constituents from a waste lubricating oil mixture, thereafter separating higher quality base oil constituents and lower quality base oil constituents from the base oil recovered from the waste lubricating oil mixture and thereafter treating the lower quality base oil constituents to produce marketable base oil. The total base oil produced from a waste lubricating oil mixture by this process is greater than the quantity producible by previous processes using only base oil separation from the waste lubricating oil mixture or processes which use only treatment of the base oil recovered from the waste lubricating oil mixture to produce the product base oil.

Systems and methods for the desalination of water are disclosed. A system includes a concentrated solar power (CSP) system, the CSP system operable to concentrate solar energy to increase temperature and pressure of a heat transfer fluid and operable to produce steam utilizing heat from the heat transfer fluid; a photovoltaic (PV) system, the PV system operable to collect solar energy to produce electricity; a desalination system in fluid communication with the CSP system and in electrical communication with the PV system, the desalination system operable to produce desalinated water from a salt water source utilizing the steam from the CSP system and electricity from the PV system; and a pump station in fluid communication with the CSP system and the desalination system, and in electrical communication with the PV system, the pump station operable to transmit the desalinated water to consumers for use.

The present disclosure relates to a method and device for obtaining distillate from non-potable water. The method comprises the steps of utilizing solar power from a solar power system to produce electricity and steam, utilizing the electricity and the steam in a water treatment device to convert the non-potable water into distillate and concentrate, transporting at least a part of the distillate to consumers for use. The method and device provide multiple effect distillation (MED) combined with vapour compression (VC) being able to work 24 hours a day only on solar energy.

Processes and systems are provided to compress vapors produced in distillation and recover the heat of condensation through mechanical vapor compression and to derive mechanical and electrical energy from a combined heat and power system, while maintaining the plant's original ability to operate. The plant's existing distillation system, steam generation, and electrical demand determine the design basis for the retrofit system that is targeted at an optimized combination of energy usage, energy cost, and environmental impact. Mechanical vapor compression minimizes the total energy usage. Combined heat and power provides a means of converting energy between fuel, electricity, and thermal energy in a manner that best complements plant requirements and energy economics and minimizes inefficiencies and energy losses.