Membrane cleaning and pretreatments in membrane distillation – a review

Abdel‐Karim, Ahmed; Leaper, Sebastian; Skuse, Clara; Zaragoza, Guillermo; Gryta, Marek

doi:10.1016/j.cej.2021.129696

Cited by 145 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…Moreover, fouling also reduces the lifecycle efficiency of the membrane, which in turn results in an increase in the energy usage, an increase in the frequency of membrane cleaning and/or membrane substitution, and consequently an increase of the maintenance costs of the overall process [54]. Note also that the cleaning agents must be selected carefully, as they also may influence membrane properties [47,54,55]. The impact of other types of fouling, as well as of the cleaning agent, on membrane properties must be explored in future investigations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Current techniques for fouling control are feed pretreatment and membrane cleaning [25,39,[43][44][45]. Some other approaches to mitigating fouling include fabricating new membranes with new designs and materials [41]; changing flow regimes; and developing antifouling membranes, including modifying the membrane surface, designing of new membrane modules, and the use of physical and chemical techniques [7,13,[45][46][47]. One of the main issues in membrane-based processes is fouling [7,24,[34][35][36].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of the published research associated with modeling of MD systems investigates transport phenomena in boundary layers and through the membrane, while very little attention has been paid to fouling phenomena [13,24,37,47]. However, in other filtration systems, attempts have been made to model fouling.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Water Flux Prediction in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation Subject to Inorganic Fouling

Suárez

Río

Aravena³

2022

Membranes

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Freshwater is a limited resource, which has driven the development of new purification and water-reuse technologies. One promising technology for water treatment is membrane distillation (MD). One of the main problems of MD, and of many desalination technologies, is membrane fouling, which reduces the performance of the membrane. This work presents a mathematical model that aims to predict distillate fluxes in direct-contact MD when fouling occurs as salts are deposited onto the membrane surface, forming an inorganic fouling layer. The mathematical model uses a heat- and mass-transfer formulation for prediction of the distillate flux under steady state conditions, and it is combined with the cake-filtration theory to represent the distillate fluxes after the onset of membrane fouling. Model results agree well with experimental observation of distillate fluxes, both before (~12–14 kg m−2 h−1) and after the onset of membrane fouling, with root-mean-square errors smaller than 1.4 kg m−2 h−1 in all the experiments. These results suggest that the cake-filtration theory can be used to represent water flux decline in MD membranes prone to inorganic fouling. From our experiments and from the modelling exercise, we found that the onset of membrane failure was relatively constant; the precipitation reaction constant is conditioned by the physicochemical interaction between the feed solution and the membrane; and the rate of flux decline after membrane fouling depends on flow conditions as well as on the precipitation compound. However, the proposed model has limitations that must be addressed in future investigations to validate it under a wider range of operating conditions, for membranes composed by other materials and with different feed solutions to address organic, biological, and/or colloidal fouling, which typically occur under real conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Water Flux Prediction in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation Subject to Inorganic Fouling

Suárez

Río

Aravena³

2022

Membranes

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“…Membrane distillation (MD) is a vapor-driven thermal separation process with a porous hydrophobic membrane as the separation medium [ 556 ]. It has been often used in removing various pollutants such as dyes, salts, and heavy metals from textile wastewater [ 557 , 558 , 559 ], seawater [ 560 , 561 , 562 ], mining effluent [ 563 , 564 ], and water production [ 565 , 566 ].…”

Section: Applications Of Hollow Fiber Membranesmentioning

confidence: 99%

State-of-the-Art Organic- and Inorganic-Based Hollow Fiber Membranes in Liquid and Gas Applications: Looking Back and Beyond

Lau

Soh

et al. 2022

Membranes

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The aggravation of environmental problems such as water scarcity and air pollution has called upon the need for a sustainable solution globally. Membrane technology, owing to its simplicity, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness, has emerged as one of the favorable technologies for water and air purification. Among all of the membrane configurations, hollow fiber membranes hold promise due to their outstanding packing density and ease of module assembly. Herein, this review systematically outlines the fundamentals of hollow fiber membranes, which comprise the structural analyses and phase inversion mechanism. Furthermore, illustrations of the latest advances in the fabrication of organic, inorganic, and composite hollow fiber membranes are presented. Key findings on the utilization of hollow fiber membranes in microfiltration (MF), nanofiltration (NF), reverse osmosis (RO), forward osmosis (FO), pervaporation, gas and vapor separation, membrane distillation, and membrane contactor are also reported. Moreover, the applications in nuclear waste treatment and biomedical fields such as hemodialysis and drug delivery are emphasized. Subsequently, the emerging R&D areas, precisely on green fabrication and modification techniques as well as sustainable materials for hollow fiber membranes, are highlighted. Last but not least, this review offers invigorating perspectives on the future directions for the design of next-generation hollow fiber membranes for various applications. As such, the comprehensive and critical insights gained in this review are anticipated to provide a new research doorway to stimulate the future development and optimization of hollow fiber membranes.

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“…Membrane technology is an emerging separation process. In comparison with conventional processes, membrane technology is attractive as it offers high performance, is cost-effective, has a small footprint, and can be operated in a very simple way. − Membranes are therefore widely used in areas such as environmental remediation, medicine, and the food industry for water and wastewater treatment or product separation and purification. − However, membrane fouling has become a major obstacle that has limited the applications of this technology. ,,− To resolve the membrane fouling problem, various modified membranes have been developed, including smart membranes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart Self-Cleaning Membrane via the Blending of an Upper Critical Solution Temperature Diblock Copolymer with PVDF

Jia

Zhang

et al. 2021

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

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Poly(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl methacrylate)-b-poly(imidazoled glycidyl methacrylate-co-diethylene glycol methyl ether methacrylate) (PTFEMA-b-P(iGMA-co-MEO2MA)) containing an upper critical solution temperature (UCST) polymer chain was prepared and blended with poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) to produce a thermoresponsive membrane with smart self-cleaning performance. The successful preparation of the membrane was demonstrated by attenuated total reflection–Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy characterization. The membrane shows UCST performance, and its flux changes with the filtrate temperature as the UCST polymer chain stretches out and contracts in response to various temperatures. In addition, the UCST polymer chain can disrupt the foulant and push it away from the membrane when the temperature is above the UCST and thus enables membranes to exhibit a smart self-cleaning behavior. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first report of a smart self-cleaning membrane based on the blending of a diblock copolymer containing a UCST polymer chain with PVDF.

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Membrane cleaning and pretreatments in membrane distillation – a review

Cited by 145 publications

References 96 publications

Water Flux Prediction in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation Subject to Inorganic Fouling

Water Flux Prediction in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation Subject to Inorganic Fouling

State-of-the-Art Organic- and Inorganic-Based Hollow Fiber Membranes in Liquid and Gas Applications: Looking Back and Beyond

Smart Self-Cleaning Membrane via the Blending of an Upper Critical Solution Temperature Diblock Copolymer with PVDF

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