Membrane Distillation: Pre-Treatment Effects on Fouling Dynamics

Santos, Paula G.; Scherer, Cíntia M.; Fisch, Adriano G.; Rodrigues, Marco Antônio Siqueira

doi:10.3390/membranes11120958

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The permeate flux of seawater showed a decrease through the DCMD process. The reason could be the fouling effect of seawater minerals and total dissolved solids (as mentioned in Figure 6e) in comparison to synthetic brine water [12,68,69]. It is important to highlight that in the case of an industrial scale module, the circulation pump generates a specific level of overpressure to induce deformation at the water-air interface, resulting in the wetting of the membrane.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Fabricated Membrane Performance In MD Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Friendly Superhydrophobic Modification of Low-Cost Multi-Layer Composite Mullite Base Tubular Ceramic Membrane for Water Desalination

Zare,

Abbasi,

Hashemifard

et al. 2024

Water

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This study aimed to investigate and develop a cost-effective and superhydrophobic ceramic membrane for direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) applications. Two types of mullite-based composite membranes were prepared via extrusion and sintering techniques. To create a small and narrow pore diameter distribution on the membrane surface, the dip-coating technique with 1 µm alumina was employed. The hexadecyltrimethoxysilane eco-friendly grafting agent was adopted to modify low-cost multilayer mullite-based composite membranes, transforming them from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic. The prepared membranes were characterized via field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy-dispersive spectrometry (EDS), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), liquid entire pressure (LEP), contact angle, atomic force microscopy (AFM), porosity, and membrane permeability. The results of the prepared membranes validate the appropriateness of the material for membrane distillation applications. The optimized membrane, with a contact angle of 160° and LEP = 1.5 bar, was tested under DCMD using a 3.5 wt.% sodium chloride (NaCl) synthetic solution and Persian Gulf seawater as a feed. Based on the acquired results, an average permeate flux of 3.15 kg/(m2·h) and salt rejection (R%) of 99.62% were found for the 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution. Moreover, seawater desalination showed an average permeate flux of 2.37 kg/(m2·h) and salt rejection of 99.81% for a 20-h test without any pore wetting. Membrane distillation with a hydrophobic membrane decreased the turbidity of seawater by 93.13%.

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Section: Evaluation Of Fabricated Membrane Performance In MD Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Friendly Superhydrophobic Modification of Low-Cost Multi-Layer Composite Mullite Base Tubular Ceramic Membrane for Water Desalination

Zare,

Abbasi,

Hashemifard

et al. 2024

Water

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“…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%

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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“…Therefore, the pre-treatment of water before entering membrane systems was addressed in many studies to prolong and maintain membrane performance. Santos et al [ 4 ] evaluated the employment of pre-treatment before membrane distillation using experiments coupled with mathematical modeling. Their results showed that particulate and precipitated material deposition occurred in all tests.…”

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confidence: 99%