Polymer Film Heat Transfer Surfaces in Seawater Desalination: Fouling Layer Formation and Technology

Abstract

The emerging polyether ether ketone (PEEK) films were evaluated as future heat exchanger materials in seawater thermal desalination processes. Fouling resistance curves were measured in a pilot plant for pure PEEK films, talcum-filled PEEK films, and stainless-steel films with artificial seawater, showing that pure PEEK films have the advantage of weaker forces of adhesion or cohesion between the scaling materials and the film surface. Increasing the flow rate from 18 to 24 L min -1 results in decreases of both the fouling rate and the asymptotic values. This was attributed to the lower polarity of 10.4 %, the lower arithmetic average roughness of 0.06 μm, and the homogeneous topography of the PEEK film. This polymer film is adaptable to in situ cleaning in thermal seawater desalination processes.A combined automatic control and instrumentation system for the volumetric flow rate (F), the bulk seawater temperature (T B ), and the hot surface temperature (T S ) is installed to enable

Role of four-phonon processes in thermal conductivity of two-dimensional materials and thermal-transport enhancement arising from interconnected nanofiller networks in polymer/nanofiller composites

“…Nanomaterials, such as graphitic nanoplatelets, boron-nitride nanosheets and carbon nanotubes, have been widely studied for enhancement of the thermal conductivity of polymers. High thermal conductivity polymer composites and phase-change materials play an important role in a wide range of thermal management applications such as electronics cooling, 7–9 water desalination, 10–12 solar energy harvesting, 13–15 automotive applications, 16–18 battery thermal management 19–21 and corrosion resistant heat-exchangers for off-shore applications. 22,23 Polymers offer unique advantages such as lightweight, low cost, corrosion resistance, ease of moldability, and lower energy consumption involved in their production compared to metals.…”

Whey protein fouling on polymeric heat exchangers

“…Instead, losses can also be reduced by utilizing less fouling susceptible heat exchanger materials such as polymers. 17,18 Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) is a high-performance polymer that has good tensile strength and low susceptibility to crystallization and biological fouling [19][20][21][22] and is FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) approved for food-grade applications. 23,24 However, very little data has been published on the effectiveness of PEEK on dairy product fouling, 24 and no work was found on continuous heat exchanger operation.…”