SOME EXPERIMENTS ON FLASH EVAPORATION ENHANCEMENT BY ELECTROLYTICALLYGENERATED BUBBLES

Experiments were conducted in a scaled-down stage of a multi-stage fla sh evaporator at about 100 degrees C to examine the effects of electro lytically generated hydrogen bubbles on flash evaporation. The bubble generator was placed just downstream of the hydraulic jump, in the tra nquil single-phase flow region, It was found that these hydrogen bubbl es (<0.5 ppb in the solution) have indeed promoted ebullition in flash stage regions where the superheat was otherwise too low for flash eva poration, and have thus reduced the non-equilibrium temperature differ ence by up to 15%. The energy investment for such bubble generation is negligible.