Patent ID: 8771478

Claim:
A distillation apparatus for producing distillate from a contaminated liquid, comprising: a vacuum chamber and associated vacuum pump for creating a vacuum therein; an evaporator-condenser positioned within said vacuum chamber, said evaporator-condenser having a plurality of plates, each of said plurality of plates having a first surface for facilitating evaporation of the contaminated liquid into a vapor, and a second surface for facilitating condensation of a compressed vapor into a distillate; at least one partition positioned within said vacuum chamber for separating the distillate from the contaminated liquid; a vapor compressor for receiving the vapor from said vacuum chamber at a first temperature and pumping the compressed vapor back into said vacuum chamber at a higher temperature; at least one heat exchanger that recovers sensible heat from at least one of the distillate and a concentrate pumped from said vacuum chamber and preheats incoming contaminated liquid using the recovered heat; and a start-up heater for further heating the preheated contaminated liquid from said at least one heat exchanger before the preheated contaminated liquid enters said vacuum chamber, wherein condensation of the compressed vapor into the distillate by said second surface of said plurality of plates releases latent heat from the compressed vapor into said evaporator-condenser thereby evaporating the preheated contaminated liquid, and wherein said evaporator-condenser is a rising film or a falling film heat exchanger.