Standards Development

Scope

This document provides methods for evaluating the performance of mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) technology for the treatment and reclamation of high-salinity wastewater in water reuse systems. It establishes a framework for evaluating water quality and process performance to validate MVR performance through typical parameters. This document is applicable to MVR systems used as stand-alone or integrated treatment units in industrial water reuse applications.

Purpose

With the expansion of industries that generate high-salinity wastewater, the volume of high-salinity wastewater that cannot be economically treated by conventional biological treatment or membranebased technologies is steadily increasing. Typical examples of streams presenting the greatest treatment challenges include reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate, ion-exchange resin regeneration wastewater, flue gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater from thermal power plants, and wastewater generated by semiconductor manufacturing, battery production, and coal chemical processing. Membrane processes are generally limited when treating streams with very high salinity or severe scaling potential, whereas evaporative concentration can treat brines with total dissolved solids (TDS) well above 50 000 mg/l. Uncontrolled discharge of these streams may cause significant environmental impacts, including salinity stress in receiving waters and increased pressure on freshwater resources. Mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) is a high-efficiency, thermally driven evaporation technology that compresses and recycles the low-pressure vapor generated during evaporation as its own heating source. Through the recovery and reuse of latent heat by mechanical compression, MVR systems achieve high water recovery rates from high-TDS wastewater at substantially lower specific energy consumption and carbon footprint compared with conventional thermal or multiple-effect evaporation systems. MVR produces a large volume of high-quality distillate suitable for reuse and a small volume of highly concentrated brine, from which salts may be recovered as resources by crystallization. Consequently, MVR is increasingly recognized as a key enabling technology for achieving zero liquid discharge (ZLD) objectives and industrial water circularity programmes.

To select the most appropriate technology for a water reuse project, the performance of the treatment technology should be properly evaluated. This proposed standard will provide a common technical basis for evaluating MVR systems, supporting technology selection, procurement, commissioning, operation, and cross-project comparison in industrial water reuse applications.