This critical review investigates the potential for membrane distillation to desalinate high-salinity waters using low-grade heat at the water-energy nexus.

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Membrane distillation (MD) is a rapidly emerging water treatment technology; however, membrane pore wetting is a primary barrier to widespread industrial use of MD. The primary causes of membrane wetting are exceedance of liquid entry pressure and membrane fouling. Developments in membrane design and the use of pretreatment have provided significant advancement toward wetting prevention in membrane distillation, but further progress is needed. In this study, a broad review is carried out on wetting incidence in membrane distillation processes. Based on this perspective, the study describes the wetting mechanisms, wetting causes, and wetting detection methods, as well as hydrophobicity measurements of MD membranes. This review discusses current understanding and areas for future investigation on the influence of operating conditions, MD configuration, and membrane non-wettability characteristics on wetting phenomena. Additionally, the review highlights mathematical wetting models and several approaches to wetting control, such as membrane fabrication and modification, as well as techniques for membrane restoration in MD. The literature shows that inorganic scaling and organic fouling are the main causes of membrane wetting. The regeneration of wetting MD membranes is found to be challenging and the obtained results are usually not favorable. Several pretreatment processes are found to inhibit membrane wetting by removing the wetting agents from the feed solution. Various advanced membrane designs are considered to bring membrane surface non-wettability to the states of superhydrophobicity and superomniphobicity; however, these methods commonly demand complex fabrication processes or high-specialized equipment. Recharging air in the feed to maintain protective air layers on the membrane surface has proven to be very effective to prevent wetting, but such techniques are immature and in need of significant research on design, optimization, and pilot-scale studies.

Conventional water resources in many regions are insufficient to meet the water needs of growing populations, thus reuse is gaining acceptance as a method of water supply augmentation. Recent advancements in membrane technology have allowed for the reclamation of municipal wastewater for the production of drinking water, i.e., potable reuse. Although public perception can be a challenge, potable reuse is often the least energy-intensive method of providing additional drinking water to water stressed regions. A variety of membranes have been developed that can remove water contaminants ranging from particles and pathogens to dissolved organic compounds and salts. Typically, potable reuse treatment plants use polymeric membranes for microfiltration or ultrafiltration in conjunction with reverse osmosis and, in some cases, nanofiltration. Membrane properties, including pore size, wettability, surface charge, roughness, thermal resistance, chemical stability, permeability, thickness and mechanical strength, vary between membranes and applications. Advancements in membrane technology including new membrane materials, coatings, and manufacturing methods, as well as emerging membrane processes such as membrane bioreactors, electrodialysis, and forward osmosis have been developed to improve selectivity, energy consumption, fouling resistance, and/or capital cost. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive summary of the role of polymeric membranes in the treatment of wastewater to potable water quality and highlight recent advancements in separation processes. Beyond membranes themselves, this review covers the background and history of potable reuse, and commonly used potable reuse process chains, pretreatment steps, and advanced oxidation processes. Key trends in membrane technology include novel configurations, materials and fouling prevention techniques. Challenges still facing membrane-based potable reuse applications, including chemical and biological contaminant removal, membrane fouling, and public perception, are highlighted as areas in need of further research and development.

The main objective of this study is to examine how the charge densities of four monovalent anions-fluoride (F), chloride (Cl), bromide (Br), and nitrate (NO)-influence their Donnan (charge) exclusion by a charged nanofiltration (NF) membrane. We systematically studied the rejection behavior of ternary ion solutions containing sodium cation (Na) and two of the monovalent anions as a function of the pH with a polyamide NF membrane. In the solutions containing F and Cl or F and Br, F rejection was higher than Cl or Br rejection only when the solution pH was higher than 5.5, suggesting that F (which has a higher charge density) was repelled more strongly by the negatively charged membrane. The order of change in the activation energy for the transport of the four anions through the polyamide membrane as a response to the increase of the membrane negative charge was the following: F > Cl > NO > Br. This order corroborates our main hypothesis that an anion with a smaller ionic radius, and hence a higher charge density, is more affected by the Donnan (charge)-exclusion mechanism in NF. We conclude with a proposed mechanism for the role of ionic charge density in the rejection of monovalent anions in NF.

ABSTRACT:As reverse osmosis (RO) desalination capacity increases worldwide, the need to reduce its specific energy consumption becomes more urgent. In addition to the incremental changes attainable with improved components such as membranes and pumps, more significant reduction of energy consumption can be achieved through time-varying RO processes including semi-batch processes such as closed-circuit reverse osmosis (CCRO) and fully-batch processes that have not yet been commercialized or modeled in detail. In this study, numerical models of the energy consumption of batch RO (BRO), CCRO, and the standard continuous RO process are detailed. Two new energy-efficient configurations of batch RO are analyzed. Batch systems use significantly less energy than continuous RO over a wide range of recovery ratios and source water salinities.Relative to continuous RO, models predict that CCRO and batch RO demonstrate up to 37 % and 64 % energy savings, respectively, for brackish water desalination at high water recovery. For batch RO and CCRO, the primary reductions in energy use stem from atmospheric pressure brine discharge and reduced streamwise variation in driving pressure. Fully-batch systems further reduce energy consumption by not mixing streams of different concentrations, which CCRO does. These results demonstrate that time-varying processes can significantly raise RO energy efficiency.

Nanofiltration performance as a function of feed temperature is relevant to several industrial settings including pretreatment for scale control in thermal desalination. Understanding of solute transport as a function of temperature is critical for effective membrane and system design. In this study, nanofiltration is modeled at 22, 40 and 50 o C using the Donnan Steric Pore Model with dielectric exclusion (DSPM-DE).This modeling includes the temperature dependence of the three modes of solute transport, namely the convective, electromigrative, and diffusive modes, and the three mechanisms of solute exclusion, namely Donnan, steric, and dielectric exclusion. The effect of temperature is captured through the variation of membrane parameters and solvent and ionic mobilities with temperature. We compare the most abundant ionic compound in natural water, sodium-chloride with magnesium-chloride to portray how the salt passage and rejection change for a 1:1 salt compared to a 2:1 salt, and we analyze Arabian Gulf seawater to understand how rejection of scale-forming ions, such as Mg 2+ and Ca 2+ , is affected by feed temperature.In all cases, solute transport increases with temperature, attributed predominantly to the cumulative effect of membrane parameters and only to a small extent (up to 5%) to the solvent viscosity and ion diffusivity together.Keywords: Nanofiltration, Temperature, Ion transport, Desalination

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