A unique method and ternary cycle process that captures heat from low temperature sources currently considered not commercially usable to produce electricity and desalinate water. In one cycle a novel flash tower operating at vacuum pressure causes a fraction of low temperature water to flash into steam. The steam passes to an indirect heat exchanger with a circulating refrigerating agent such as CO.sub.2, which condenses the steam on its outside surfaces to produce desalinated water product. The steam heat of condensation vaporizes the refrigerating agent, which is part of a binary refrigerate cycle that uniquely conditions it for turbine expansion to produce electricity in a connected electric generator.

Improvements in grain alcohol distillation plants by incorporating a novel internal arrangement in the wort column and the rectifying column with distributors and accumulators inside thereof, achieving a stable and safe process in wide ranges of operation, guaranteeing the productivity of the plant and the quality of the products. The wort column features detachable perforated plates, easy to access and clean through manholes. By having easily detachable plates and, also, a manhole for each plate with “holder” type connections, the access to the interior of the column for cleaning and maintenance purposes is facilitated. The rectifying column is a special filling column with flow distributors, it has an intermediate alcohol accumulator and a condenser which is an integral part of the column that prevents the use of pumps. The arrangement of distributors and accumulators within the rectifying column favors the operational stability of the plant, allowing a low scale equipment to work similarly to an industrial scale column. The improvements include an integrated automation system with Internet communication for self-management of the plant with remote monitoring and autonomous operation.

A desalination system, etc. of the present disclosure includes: a water tank; a water-repellent particle layer that is located below the water tank and contains a plurality of water-repellent particles; a liquefying layer that is located below the water-repellent particle layer and liquefies water vapor that has passed through the water-repellent particle layer, to obtain fresh water; an introduction channel of a liquid supply channel that supplies a liquid to the water tank; and a liquid speed reduction part that is located on the introduction channel of the supply channel, and includes a wall surface crossing a flow direction of the liquid in the supply channel, for reducing a flow speed of the liquid.

The present invention provides a rotary evaporator capable of accurately quantifying concentrated liquid and/or distillate. A distillation flask is improved into a structure having a liquid discharge opening formed at the bottom, and/or a spherical collecting flask is improved into a structure having a liquid release opening formed at the bottom. Concentrated liquid and/or distillate can be discharged without dismounting the distillation flask and/or the collecting flask. In addition, fine metering scale tubes and quantitative capacity increase units are disposed at the liquid discharge opening and/or the liquid release opening, there is a valve on the top and another valve on the bottom of each tube, so that the constant subtle changes of the amount of concentrated liquid and/or distillate can be observed, and an accurate amount of concentrated liquid and/or distillate can be discharged.

Provided herein are integrated distillation apparatuses configured as stand-alone fully integrated systems having a reduced footprint. Integrated distillation apparatuses can have a rotary evaporator, a condenser, and an integrated refrigeration system or chiller, as well as an integrated water bath and vacuum pump, all of which can be integrated into a central frame and/or housing assembly. Integrated distillation apparatuses can be configured such that the rotary evaporator is movably attached to a frame structure and configured to be vertically translatable in position, whereas the condenser can be affixed to the structure by an arm extending from the structure and adjacent to the rotary evaporator, and wherein the refrigeration system can be in fluid communication with the condenser.

An industrial washing process for various items such as precision small parts, mechanical parts, printed circuits, lenses, watchmaking articles, jewelry, eyewear or the like, includes regeneration of the used solvent by means of a first distillation and the step of drying the material in a vacuum chamber. The regeneration step includes at least one step of distillation through thermocompression carried out by compressing the solvent vapors by a pump and conveying them to an exchanger at higher pressure and temperature than the distiller. In this way the liquid to be evaporated can be used to condense the vapors with total recovery of the condensation energy, in this way avoiding the use of external thermal energy sources and obtaining a very high distillation capacity with lower energy consumption compared to a traditional condenser, and can also be used in a vacuum distillation step, if necessary, to further concentrate the distillation residues.

The invention generally relates to a modular crude oil refinery (MOOR). The MOOR is designed for smaller scale deployment with a capacity to process in the range of 3,000-4,000 barrels of crude oil per day in a single production unit and with the potential to scale to over 100,000 barrels per day with linked production units. More specifically, a MOOR includes a low temperature, low pressure primary separation reactor, condensing system and recirculation systems operating in a closed loop configuration that enable the production of both heavy and light hydrocarbon products with substantially no emissions. The MOOR has the capability to receive and process crude-oil feedstocks of varying API gravity and be controlled to produce a variety of both heavy and light products including cleaner-burning bunker fuels, jet fuels, diesel fuels, gasoline fuels and asphalt binders.

The present invention relates to the distillation and crystallization of feed water. In particular, the present invention relates to the distillation and crystallization of industrial wastewater or saline or brackish water. The present invention relates to both an apparatus and method for carrying out the distillation. In an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a distillation apparatus comprising: (a) an crystalliser for evaporating a feed water to produce water vapour; (b) adsorption means in vapour communication with the crystalliser for reversibly adsorbing the water vapour from the crystalliser; and (c) desorbing means for desorbing the adsorbed water vapour from the adsorption means, wherein the crystalliser evaporates the feed water under pressure that is substantially lower than atmospheric pressure to form a concentrated solution or slurry comprising crystallised solids.

Herein, a cleaning device for a rotary evaporator (2) is provided. The rotary evaporator (2) comprises at least a rotatably arranged rotary flask (4) for receiving a substance to be evaporated and a condenser (5) for condensing the evaporated substance during operation of the rotary evaporator (2). The cleaning device (1) comprises at least a supply line (16, 16′) for supplying a cleaning agent, a cleaning agent supply (13) for storing the cleaning agent and a pressure generating means (15) for generating a pressure in the cleaning agent in order to supply a pressurized cleaning agent from the cleaning agent supply (13) through the supply line (16, 16′) to the rotary flask (4) and/or to the condenser (5).

A multi-function solar panel, the panel being of the tilted tray type which is divided into three chambers, one chamber being used for electricity generation, and cooling of the PV panel and partial preheating of the feed water to a still, one for processing the feed water to produce potable water and the other for water storage and other ancillary devices used in the production process and PAYG functionality of the multi-function solar panel.