Desalination, 93 (1993) 57-68 57

Elsevier Science PublishersB.V., Amsterdam

The development of the multi-stage flash distillation

process: A designer’s viewpoint

Richard M. Morris
European Federation of C&em&alEngineering, Porthn Ltd., Scotland

SUMMARY

The multi-stage flash distillation process was invented by Prof. R.S.

Silver in 1957. The first plants were built in 1960. The development of the
process triggered substantial growth in installed capacity throughout the
sixties. The oil crisis of the early seventies fuelled this growth which tapered
off in the mid-eighties. Over this period plant size increased although not as
dramatically as had been predicted. Apart from the development of the on-
line ball cleaning system and the high temperature additive, the development
of the process has been evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Plant
reliability and resistance to corrosion have been increased significantly.
Further developments are likely to be made on the basis of applying past
experience to new designs. There is the opportunity to reduce the cost of the
plants by examining successful designs and developing a code of best
practice.

THEFIFTIES

By the early 1950’s it was increasingly recognised that an improved

process for producing fresh water from sea water was overdue. The
dominating technology at the time was multiple effect boiling using sub-
merged tubes. The process had considerable scale control problems, the
equipment was expensive to manufacture, there were size limitations, and
it was generally felt to be unsatisfactory. G & J Weir, a Scottish company
based at Cathcart in Glasgow, was one of the main companies involved in
supplying this type of equipment.

001 l-9164/93/$06.00 0 1993 Elswier Science PublishersB.V. All rights reserved.

58

In 1955 Weir was requested to tender for plants in Kuwait and Curacao.
They bid their submerged tube multiple effect boiling plants for both jobs.
They won the Curacao contract but lost the Kuwait contract to Westing-
house, who had submitted a new multiple effect flash design.
As Weir had previously supplied a number of plants to Kuwait, they were
upset to lose the contract, and there was considerable soul searching at
Cathcart. In 1956 R.S. Silver rejoined Weir, having left the company in
1946. One of his first jobs was to examine the Westinghouse design with the
basic objective of identifying flaws and weakness in the design. This was
something that Silver was well qualified to do as he had worked on evapora-
tion and flashing .flow in the past. At this time it was assumed that the
thermodynamics governing the new flash process were the same as for
multiple effect. The new Westinghouse flash plant had four effects and a
performance ratio of 3.3, which was consistent with this.
During his examination of the process, Silver realised and proved that
this was not in fact the case and that the relationship of performance ratio to
the number of effects was not the same as in the traditional multiple effect
plants and that this was something that Westinghouse and others had
overlooked. Consequently, by early 1957 he was in a position to apply for
patents in the United States and in the U.K. for what we now know as the
multi-stage flash (MSF) process. The patent claim was defined as having the
number of stages greater than twice the performance ratio. The British
patent was granted in 1958 and the American one in 1963 after protracted
correspondence.
In 1958 Silver visited Kuwait to discuss his new process with the MEW
staff. Subsequently, Mr. J. Addison, accompanied by his assistant, Dr. Ali
El-Saie, visited Glasgow to examine the prototype that Weir had built in
Glasgow. In the same year Silver published the first paper describing the
new process [ 11. In response to an invitation to tender issued by Kuwait,
Weir bid their new design. This had 19 stages and a performance ratio of 6.
Weir won the contract, and Kuwait E was commissioned in April 1960. This
was a three-deck design due to space considerations which continued in
operation well into the eighties.
In parallel with this Weir had also won a contract to construct an MSF
plant in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. This was a two-deck design
with 40 stages and a performance ratio of 10. The plant was similar in
overall appearance to those being constructed today, although it did contain
some novel features. This plant should have been commissioned earlier than
the Kuwait E plant, but during commissioning the brine circulation pump
tore itselfapart andcommissioning was delayeduntil August. Unfortunately,
 59

as the plant was only used intermittently during droughts, it suffered badly
from corrosion and was taken out of service in the early seventies.
In order to gain a better understanding of the strength of a distiller shell,
the Guernsey plant prior to scrapping was tested to destruction by hydrostati-
cally over-pressurising the shell. It is doubtful that very much of use was
learned from this experiment [2].
As has been commented above, there was a delay in granting the U.S.
patent. This delay reduced Weir’s commercial advantage, allowing a number
of other companies to enter the fray. In the United States Cleaver Brooks
commissioned a 150,000 gpd plant with 26 stages and a performance ratio
of 6 in California in December 1959. This is described by Gordon Leitner
in his paper in 1960 [3]. This was a long tube design and was to set the
pattern for the future where American designers favoured the long tube
configuration and the European designers favoured the cross tube.
In the U.K. Weir found themselves in conflict with Richardson West-
garth, one of their competitors. Unknown to each other Dr. Adolf Frankel
[4] of Richardson Westgarth had been working along similar lines to Silver.
The problem was eventually solved by a merger of the two companies into
a joint venture to form Weir Westgarth. Subsequently Weir bought out the
Richardson Westgarth interest in the company. In 1968 UNESCO awarded
R.S. Silver their first Science prize for his work in developing the MSF
process. It is interesting to note that while many see MSF and MEB as
different competitive processes, they are in fact two ends of a continuum, a
fact pointed out by Silver in 1971 [5].

THE SIXTIES

During the sixties much work was carried out to improve the understand-
ing of the process. Progress over this period was reviewed by Silver [6] in
1970 in his paper “MSF - The First 10 Years.” Installed capacity grew
quickly over this period and plant size also increased. By the end of the
decade units of 25,000 m3d were being designed. Considerable efforts were
being made to reduce the size and cost of the process. Simpson [7] sum-
marised the progress that was made in developing both the mechanical
design and the process design. Material problems and corrosion were the
subject of a great deal of attention.
At Jersey in the Channel Islands, Weir built a 1.5 mgd unit with a
performance ratio of 12.5. The plant was of two-deck construction with 40
stages. As in the case of the Guernsey plant, the unit was operated intermit-
60

tently in drought conditions and suffered from corrosion problems. It

remains the plant with the highest performance ratio.

Nationulprogmmmes
Also underway were significant national research projects. The problems
associated with two-phase flashing flow, brine temperature equilibration and
the design of brine transfer devices were the main areas of investigation. In
the U.S. the Office of Saline Water carried out many studies on the process
and had constructed a demonstration plant of 4000 m3/d at Point Loma in
California. This was of the long tube design. In the U.K. the Atomic Energy
Commission devoted resources to developing the process and helped to
finance a pilot plant operated by Weir at Troon in Scotland. In France and
Japan there were also national programmes to develop desalination technolo-
gy. The Japanese did a great deal of work on the use of concrete for the
construction of the shell.
The spirit of the times was that -by spending money on desalination
technology, cheap fresh water could be provided for the arid regions of the
world. Sadly, this dream has yet to be realised.
In retrospect, it is difficult to identify any real benefit that this expendi-
ture generated with respect to the MSF process. The real developments were
made by the companies involved commercially. While much was learnt
about two-phase flashing flow, there is much more still to be understood.
Manufacturers developed empirical rules which worked and were prepared
to leave it at that.

Development of on-line cleaning

One of the significant developments to the process was the introduction
of on-line ball cleaning systems. This was first installed in an MSF plant
installed by Weir Westgarth at Clifton Pier in the Bahamas in 1967
(4500 m3/d). The plant was of the once through design and was additive
dosed. During the 30&y acceptance test, the performance ratio fell more
rapidly than had been anticipated due to scale formation.
Apart from designing desalination plants, Weir also designed condensers
for power stations. The Germany company Taprogge had developed an on-
line ball cleaning system for such plants. In an effort to solve the scaling
problem in the Bahamas, Weir Westgarth purchased and installed a
Taprogge on-line ball cleaning system. As Quems reported in his paper [8],
the system worked well and the plant passed its 30&y acceptance test. This
 61

was the first application of the on-line ball cleaning system in an MSF plant.
Similar systems are now standard in most additive-dosed plants. This
development paved the way for the high temperature additive. In conclusion
of his paper in 1968, Querns [8] commented: “Developments in MSF
distillation have reached a plateau where returns on effort involved will
come from study of operation and maintenance directed towards reduction
in outage for repair and maintenance”. This was true then and is true today.

High temperature additive

One of the factors limiting output from a desalination plant is the
temperature to which the brine can be heated before serious scaling occurs.
Considerable efforts were expended to develop additives which would allow
this temperature to be increased significantly without scale formation. No
such additives have ever been found. It was also pointed out [4] that as most
desalination plants were using waste heat from power plants, the loss of
generating capacity brought about by using high-grade steam to elevate the
temperature of the brine resulted in an unacceptable loss in generating
capacity. The optimum brine temperature was thus found to be in the region
of 120-13O”C, which was close to the acceptable limit of 120°C to avoid
calcium sulphate scaling. In an interesting bit of lateral thinking, Querns of
Weir Westgarth suggested to the U.K. Atomic Energy Agency, who were
working on this problem, that with the advent of the ball cleaning system it
was not necessary to completely eliminate scale deposition. If the scale
deposited in the temperature range 90-120°C could be modified to deposit
as a soft sludge, then the Taprogge balls could cope. The resulting extension
of the flash range would thus offer significant savings in capital costs. Ciba
Geigy, who were working with the U.K.A.E.A. on this project, were able
to develop chemicals to do this, and thus Belgard was developed. Other
chemical companies have since produced similar products.

THE SEVENTIES
Over this decade installed MSF capacity grew very rapidly. The sixties
had seen the establishment of the process and the growth and refinement of
the design. The seventies saw the exploitation of this experience mainly in
the Middle East due to the high cash inflow from higher oil prices as a result
of the oil crisis in 1973.
62

In 1971 the Hong Kong Government set about building at Lok On Pai
what were at that time the largest desalination plants in the world. A
Japanese company, Sasakura Ltd., with a licence from an American
company, were awarded the contract to build six 30,300 m3/d units. They
were commissioned in 1975.
On Sardinia at Porto Torres, SIR built an 8 mgd long tube evaporator for
a chemical refinery [9]. This was one of the few long tube plants to be built
and remains the largest ever built.
During this decade, the Japanese emerged as a major force in the
construction of large MSF plants in the Middle East. Companies like Weir,
who had been dominant in the early years of development, found increasing
competition as the know-how in designing MSF plants became more
widespread.
However, the most important feature of the seventies was the oil crisis of
1973. The massive hike in oil prices resulted in massive cash flow into the
oil-rich Middle East. This enabled these countries to embark on, amongst
many other things, substantial investment in desalination and power plants.
Almost without exception these were of the cross tube configuration, single-
or double-deck, and were additive dosed rather than acid dosed. The larger
units were around 22,500 m3/d with performance ratios of 6-8 and were
linked to power generation plants. These plants are all characterized by
having fewer stages, typically 16-20. The chamber sizes were sufficiently
large to allow easy access for construction and maintenance, and many had
the higher temperature stages lined with stainless steel. The importance of
oxygen control had by now been recognised, and many plants were fitted
with external deaerators. Towards the end of the decade, the largest order
ever placed for a desalination plant was by the Saudi Water Conversion
Corporation, when they ordered forty 25,500 m3/d units.
The development of the process continued to evolve with much improved
reliability of mechanical plants and improved resistance to corrosion.
Specifications for plants have tended to be conservative. Most plants built
during this period are capable of increased output either by increasing the
brine temperature or by increasing brine circulation. The stable operating
envelope for each plant should be identified. Almost all of the additive-dosed
plants were fitted with ball cleaning systems, and many of these were using
the new high temperature additives.
 63

THE EIGHTIES

The growth in installed capacity continued for the first part of the decade
and was largely confined to the Middle East. In the second half of the decade
growth was much shower. This was due to a combination of factors which
included a dropping of oil prices coupled with saturation of the Middle East
market and increasing pressure from reverse osmosis and other evaporation
processes.
Improvements in the process continue to be evolutionary rather than
revolutionary. Average plant size increased with units of up to 8 mgd being
ordered.

EVOLUTIONARY TRENDS

As has been mentioned above, with one or two notable exceptions, the
development of the MSF process has been evolutionary rather than revolu-
tionary. Some comments on general areas may be helpful.
l Plant configuration. The MSF plant with brine recirculation has emerged

a the standard over the years. During the seventies, the concept of fitting a
cooling water recycle pump became widely accepted. This has the advantage
of enabling the brine bottom temperature to be maintained at a higher
temperature over the winter months. With improvement in anti-foams it has
been found possible to operate some plants without cooling water recycle
pumps over the winter. Many smaller MSF plants have been constructed of
the once-through variety.

l Long-tube vs cross-tube. While this was the subject of much discussion in

the sixties and seventies, the market has decided that at the present plant
size, there are substantial benefits from the cross tube units which are much
more compact. The units built at Jeddah Phase 4 make this point very well.
Studies suggest that there may be a size at which the long tube configuration
becomes more economical.

l Two deck vs single deck. The arguments here are much less clear cut and
hinge on land availability coupled with manufacturer and customer prefer-
ence.

l Vertical MSF. A number of companies have attempted radical redesign of

the process, often attempting to produce a tower design which would have
64

certain advantages. Esmil, the Dutch company, built a vertical long-tube

MSF plant in Holland in the late seventies. The process is described by
Klarens in his paper [lo]. The most novel feature of the plant was the
method of heat transfer enhancement and scale control. This was achieved
by fluidising small glass beads, 2 mm diameter, in the vertical tubes of the
heat recovery section. The fluid&d bed of glass beads enhanced heat
transfer, and the abrasive action of the balls on the tube walls prevented a
build up of scale. While the process worked well, it failed to generate any
commercial sales, and development of the process was halted.

l Chemicaltreutment.The vast majority of plants that have been constructed

over the last 20 years have been additive dosed. Acid-dosed plants have a
history of corrosion problems. A number of large plants were constructed
at Jeddah which were acid dosed. This was mainly because there was a
cheap source of acid available locally. The advent of chemicals such as
Belgard have allowed operation at temperatures well in excess of the 90°C
limit of conventional polyphosphate without significant corrosion.

l Brine tran.$er and equilibmtion. A great deal of work was done to

improve brine transfer and brine temperature equilibration. This was done
under the national research programmes organised by OSW and others. Full
understanding of this has proved impossible. Manufacturers get by on the
basis of empirical formulae based on experiment and experience. Efforts to
produce on-line adjustable weirs proved impractical, and adjustable but fixed
weirs are used.
A number of companies have endeavoured to promote equilibration by
the insertion of turbulence promoters in the brine stream. At Bluehills in the
Bahamas, “dragon’s teeth”, which were metal spikes 25 cm long inclined at
45” to the brine flow, were welded to the distiller floor. They were not
particularly successful.

l Heat transfer. In an attempt to improve heat transfer coefficients, some

work was carried out investigating the performance of roped tubes [ 111. This
showed that heat transfer coefficients were improved and that the tubes could
be cleaned by the on-line ball cleaning system. Unfortunately, the cost of
roping the tube coupled with the increased power consumption brought about
by the higher pressure drop offset the saving in heat transfer area. This line
of development was terminated.
 65

l Construction materials. In comparison to many chemicals, seawater is not

particularly corrosive. Yet corrosion has been one of the major problems
associated with desalination plants over the years. This stems from the fact
that water is a chemical which we use in large quantities and has to be
produced cheaply. There is therefore the requirement to use the cheapest
materials. Because of the size of the plants, it is not economical to use
anything other than carbon steel for the structure of the plant.
Over the last 30 years plant designers and operators have learned to their
cost which areas of the plant give rise to corrosion problems. Our under-
standing of the various corrosion mechanisms has increased, and experience
has shown which materials or combination of materials will work and last
and those that will not. Consequently, specifications have become more
sophisticated. Experience has shown that the life of carbon steel can be
extended considerably by attention tooxygen concentration, the specification
of paint coating, and most importantly the chemical treatment regime. In
extremely corrosive areas cladding with stainless steel or some other alloy
can be effective. All of these techniques are now better understood and
employed.
Also within this time frame, various plastic and other composite materials
have been developed which have good strength characteristics and resistance
to corrosion. These have been increasingly specified, particularly for pipe
work.

l Construction. Plant construction has been altered over the years. Early

plants were often manufactured plant small and assembled on site. A major
goal of the designer was to reduce weight to a minimum - cost being seen
as a function of weight. This often meant excessive stiffening. This in turn
created problems with coatings and corrosion. There was also an incentive
to reduce heat transfer areas by increasing the number of stages. As experi-
ence was gained. designers tended to use less stiffening which provides
larger flat surfaces easier to coat and maintain. If the plant were designed for
a non41 area, then a high performance ratio would be specified. However,
most MSF plants have been built in the Middle East where energy is
relatively cheap and performance ratios of 8 have been acceptable. With the
increasing cost of the shell due to the inclusion of cladding, the optimum
design has moved to have fewer stages, Fewer larger stages have offered
advantages during manufacture and have facilitatedmaintenance over the life
of the plant. This has been particularly untouchable with large plants of
22,000 m3/d where the flash chambers are large enough to walk in upright.
66

The design of flat plate boxes has been reasonably well understood for
many years. Having said this, computer-aided design and techniques such
as finite element analyses have played a part in reducing the thicknesses of
components such as tube sheets. With the carbon steel shell, the large
corrosion allowances make such techniques slightly less relevant.
Factors which promoted the plate small philosophy in the early days were
port and transport facilities. Today these are much improved, and plants
have been brought to site virtually complete. The best example of this is
probably the plants at Jubail where the units were shipped as two pieces and
welded together on site. I think it is accepted that factory welding and
finishing is both cheaper and liable to be better quality than work carried out
on site.
Today MSF sheets for large plants are now being manufactured in the
Gulf. The availability of facilities and qualified personnel for high quality
site welding are much better.

l Pumps. The reliability, efftciency and resistance to corrosion of pumping

equipment has improved considerably over the last 30 years. However, the
sizing of pumps does present the designer with problems where he has to
design the equipment to give 10% extra output in a fouled condition.
Designing the pump to operate a high efficiency has little point if the
downstream control valve is permanently partly closed to dissipate the
excess head of the pump.
Where MSF units are installed in multiple units, the requirement for
stand-by pumps needs to be carefully examined. This also applies to control
valve by-passes and other auxiliary equipment.

l Control and instrumentation. Over the last 30 years the quality and variety

of control and instrumentation hardware has increased significantly. This has

undoubtedly assisted the management of the process. However, it must be
borne in mind that the MSF process in a well designed plant is by most
standards stable in operation. Also the plants tend to run for long periods of
time with minimum change in operating conditions. The natural tendency to
over-instrument has to be combated. Each extra bit of equipment installed
requires maintenance which increases operating costs. A malfunctioning
instrument is often worse than no instrument at all. Plant requirements for
operation and maintenance need to be carefully assessed.

l l7re role of the computer. The last 30 years has witnessed a high growth
in computational power. The MSF process has benefited from this in many
 67

ways. Initially the application of computers was at the &sign phase.

Companies developed computer programmes to assist them in producing
optimal designs both from a process and structural point of view. This was
helpful in reducing plant size and plant cost. With the use of a computer
many designs could be rapidly evaluated. Also the performance of the plant
could be simulated.
Computers are now playing an important part in controlling the process
and in safeguarding the equipment from malfunction. Computer control
coupled with modern control room VDUs should have brought costs down.
This has not always been the case.

CONCLUSIONS

The MSF process has played a vital role in the provision of water in
many areas of the world, but particularly in the Middle East. Where it is
operated in conjunction with electric power generation, it will continue to
have an important part to play. The success of the process is due in part to
its inherent robustness. With appropriate chemical dosing coupled with an
on-line cleaning system, modem plants can operate with long intervals
between shutdowns and have a long life span.
Future research should be aimed at improving reliability and reducing
capital and operating costs. The vast amount of operating experience that has
been gained from the countries operating MSF plants should be pooled to
form a code of best practice. Many of the plants built in the seventies and
eighties are capable of increased output by varying the operating parameters.
Each plant should be examined with this in mind.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to acknowledge the help that he has received from the
following people who assisted him in the preparation of this paper:
Prof. R.S. Silver, Mr. William R. Querns, Dr. Frank C. Woods, and
Mr. Gordon Leitner. All of the above have made significant contributions
to the development of the MSF process.
68

REFERENCES

1 R.S. Silver, The Sea Can Meet the World’s Increasing Water Demands. Engineering,
London, April 1958.
2 G.W. Blackbum, Fifth International Symp. on Fresh Water from the Sea, 2 (1976) 4-62.
3 G.F. Leitner, Proc., AmericanPower Conference, 22 (1960) 821-828.
4 A. Frankel, Flash evaporators for the distillation of sea-water proc. I. Mech. E., 1740
(1960).
5 R.S. Silver, Desalination, 9 (1971) 235-243.
6 R.S. Silver, in: The First Ten Years, Third Int. Symp. on Fresh Water from the Sea,
Vol. 1, pp. 191-206.
7 H.C. Simpson, Proc., Conference on Desalination as a Supplementary Water Resource,
U.K. Water Research Association, 1966.
8 W.R. Quems, Some aspects of multi-stage flash distillation plant operation and construc-
tion, Nuclear Desalination, IAEA, 1969, pp. 77-90.
9 D. Barba, G. Liuzzo, G. Spizzichino and G. Tagliaferri, Fifth Intemat. Symp. on Fresh
Water from the Sea, 2 (1976) 39-48.
10 D.G. Klaren, Fifth Intemat. Symp. on Fresh Water from the Sea, 2 (1976) 167-182.
11 I.H. Newson, Fifth Internat. Symp. on Fresh Water from the Sea, 2 (1976) 107-l 15.