Converting Seawater to Freshwater on a Ship: Fresh Water Generator Explained

OCTOBER 21, 2010 BY KARANCLEAVE A COMMENT

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Share on Facebook Fresh water generator, one of the important machinery on board a ship, is something that cannot be done without. Fresh water produced from fresh water generator is used for drinking, cooking, washing and even running other important machinery which use fresh water as a cooling medium.

Fresh water is generally produced on board using the evaporation method. There are two things that are available in plenty on ship to produce fresh water Seawater and heat. Thus fresh water is produced by evaporating sea water using heat from any of the heat source. The evaporated sea water is then again cooled by the sea water and the cycle repeats.

Generally the heat source available is taken from the main engine jacket water, which is used for cooling the main engine components such as cylinder head, liner etc. The temperature available from this jacket water is about 70 deg. centigrade. But at this temperature the evaporation of water is not possible as we all know that the evaporation of water takes place at 100 deg centigrade under atmospheric pressure. Thus in order to produce fresh water at 70 degrees we need to reduce the atmospheric pressure, which is done by creating a vacuum inside the chamber where the evaporation is taking place. Also, as a result of the vacuum the cooling of the evaporated sea water will also take place at lower temperature. This cooled water is collected and transferred to the tank. Nowadays, reverse osmosis is one of the methods which are used on board for generating fresh water. Generally this is used on passenger vessels wherein there is a large requirement of fresh water production. However, in merchant ships the evaporation method is used as reverse osmosis is costly and includes large maintenance cost for membrane. Fresh Water Generator Arrangement The main body of a fresh water generator on the ship consists of a large cylindrical body with two compartments. One of the compartments is the condenser and the other is the

evaporator. The fresh water generator also consists of an educator which helps in generating the required vacuum. The fresh water pump and ejector pump helps in transfer of water to and from the fresh water generator.

Starting the Fresh Water Generator 1. Before starting the fresh water generator we have to check that the ship is not in

congested water, canals and is 20 nautical miles away from the shore. This is done because near the shore the effluents from factories and sewage are discharged into the sea can get into the fresh water generator. 2. Check whether engine is running above 50 rpm, the reason for this is that at low

rpm the temperature of jacket water which is around 60 degrees and not sufficient for evaporation of water. 3. 4. Check the drain valve present at the bottom of the generator is in close position. Now open suction and discharge valves of the sea water pump which will provide

water for evaporation, cooling and to the eductor for creating vacuum. 5. Open the sea water discharge valve from where the water is sent back to the sea

after circulating inside the fresh water generator. 6. 7. Close the vacuum valve situated on top of the generator. Now start the sea water pump and check the pressure of the pump. The pressure

is generally 3-4 bars. 8. Wait for the vacuum to build up. Vacuum should be at least 90% which can be

seen on the gauge present on the generator. Generally the time taken for the generation of vacuum is about 10 minutes. 9. When vacuum is achieved open the valve for feed water treatment, this is to

prevent scale formation inside the plates.

10.

Now open hot water (jacket water) inlet and outlet valves slowly to about half.

Always open the outlet valve first and then inlet valve. Slowly start to increase the opening of the valves to full open. 11. Now we can see that the boiling temperature starts increasing and the vacuum

starts dropping. 12. 13. 14. start. 15. 16. Now start fresh water pump and taste the water coming out of the drain. When fresh water starts producing it is seen that the boiling temperature drops The vacuum drop to about 85% which is an indication that evaporation is started. Open the valve from fresh water pump to drain. Switch on the salinometer if it has to be started manually. Generally it is on auto

again slightly and vacuum comes back to the normal value. 17. Check the water coming out of the salinometer is not salty and also check the

reading of the salinometer. This is done to see if the salinometer is working properly or not and to prevent the whole fresh water from getting contaminated with salt water. The value of salinometer is kept below 10ppm. 18. After checking the taste of the water coming out of the salinometer, open valve for

tank from the pump and close drain valve.

Stopping the Fresh water Generator

1.

Close the jacket water inlet valves. Generally inlet is closed first and then the

outlet valve. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Close the valve for feed water treatment. Stop fresh water pump. Switch off the salinometer. Stop sea water pump (also known as ejector pump). Open vacuum valve. Close sea water suction valve and overboard valve. This is generally not required

as they are non- return valves. However, in case of valve leaking or damage, these valves are to be closed without fail.

What is Fresh Water Generator| Working|Overhauling of it

Author Mark Ericson

For any mariner fresh water generator is the most simple but most important machine on board. It uses the sea water and by evaporation it gives us the fresh water. It is not a very huge machine, but a simple one and whose sole purpose is to produce clean and pure water. Fresh water generator is also considered to be the efficiency increasing device and thus what it makes this device so important also. The ship is itself a complete city which has own fresh water sources, power sources etc. During the early days people used to carry lots of water in their ship. It was all right but it increases the load on the ship and also water shortage problems were always there. So lets scroll down more to find out what are the uses of the fresh water generator.

WHY WE NEED THE FRESH WATER GENERATOR

A very good question about any machinery present in any industry. See in shipping the main thing is the time and money and its pure business out there. The owner wants to get as much profit as he or she can. So, why we need fresh water generator? One use is the simple one that we need fresh water for drinking. But why we install machinery which is bigger in size to generate water for drinking only. So what are the

major uses of this? The major use of this water comes for the Boiler which operates in the ship. The boiler needs de mineralized water as it will help in reducing the corrosion and scale formation in the boiler surfaces. We cant carry water in advance for the boiler as the consumption will be more. The boiler steam is used for heating oils, laundry, cleaning etc. In the tanker ships which carry oil, the steam turbine which is used to pump oil also needs steam.

The fresh water generator is an efficiency increasing device also. The jacket cooling water which comes out of the engine after taking heat from the various combustion spaces like near liner etc is used to heat the water. So we are using the heat of engine to generate fresh water. So here we are saving money by not installing any separate burning mechanism for it. Now its time to check how this machine works.

HOW FRESH WATER GENERATOR WORKS

The thing which I said in above Para that it uses engine heat to generate water was looking good but here is a flaw. The flaw is that the temperature of the water coming out of the engine is hardly 60 or 70 degree Celsius. So how come we can evaporate water to generate fresh water generator because water boils only at the 100 degree Celsius. So here come the minds of the marine engineers. It uses both sea water and fresh water to. We use vacuum to evaporate water at lower temperatures like 50 or 55 degree Celsius.

PRINCIPAL OF FRESH WATER GENERATOR

The main principal behind this is that at vacuum water boils at a much lower temperature. At vacuum the boiling temperature of the water decreases a lot and hence we are able to generate the water using sea water.

The mechanism: The mechanism of the fresh water generator is very simple. Mainly fresh
water generator consists of following things:

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Condenser unit Evaporation unit, Ejector unit Saline meter unit Whole casing

The working mechanism is as follows: 1) The fresh water generator is started when a ship has traveled enough distance that the temperature of jackets of main engine are stable. This distance can be 12 nautical miles. 2) Then the outlet supply of jacket water is opened and the evaporative unit of FWG is on. 3) The sea water feeder pump is turned on and the ejector is start working and the vacuum is built up. 4) The vacuum builds up helps the water to evaporate leaving behind any salt content which is present in the sea water. Note: The evaporated water coming from the main engine is in the coils. So, no direct contact with sea water. 5) The evaporated water has to be passed through demister plate which acts like the barrier for any particle moving into the condenser unit. 6) The evaporated water is condensed by the sea water which is in the coils and then fresh water is generated. 7) After that it passes through a saline meter to check whether water generated is having standard PPM of salt content.