Guorong Yue, Jing Wang
ABSTRACT To tackle high energy consumption for high‐salinity wastewater, this study proposes an optimized multi‐effect mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) system for calcium chloride treatment. A hybrid multi‐objective optimization framework was established by integrating a rigorous steady‐state process model with strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm 2 (SPEA2). Exergy evaluation and sensitivity analysis showed that system performance improved with a first‐effect evaporation temperature of 103.64°C and a compressor discharge pressure of 1.9 bar. Under these conditions, the total heat transfer area decreased by 8.22%, energy consumption reduced by 8.61%, and crucially, economic analysis showed a 6.36% reduction. The system also demonstrated a 5.74% improvement in thermal efficiency and a 10.35% decrease in energy loss. These results confirm the proposed framework's effectiveness in balancing thermodynamic efficiency and economic viability, offering a scalable and robust design for industrial retrofitting of high‐salinity wastewater evaporation.