Design and operation of membrane distillation with feed recirculation for high recovery brine concentration

Swaminathan, Jaichander; Lienhard, John H.

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2018.07.018

Cited by 35 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In the limit of a very large feed tank, the rate of change of salinity is small. Therefore, the batch system performance at any given time can be evaluated using a steady state RO model operating with feed inlet at the instantaneous tank salinity [27].…”

Section: Effect Of Tank Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

Practical aspects of batch RO design for energy-efficient seawater desalination

Swaminathan

Tow

Stover³

et al. 2019

Desalination

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Batch operation of reverse osmosis (RO) has been proposed as a method to reduce seawater RO (SWRO) energy consumption and fouling propensity. In this paper, we use a transient numerical model of the RO process to investigate the impact of several practical loss mechanisms on the overall energetic performance of batch SWRO compared to a conventional continuous system. A critical variable that controls the energetic advantage of batch RO is the reset time between cycles. A large reset time necessitates higher operating flux and therefore results in increased energy consumption. On the other hand, ensuring a low cycle reset time requires higher energy for the refilling process. A batch SWRO design with an atmospheric pressure feed tank and pressure exchangers for energy recovery does not show promise for energy savings. Batch SWRO must be designed with a large number of short pressure vessels (with fewer membranes each) and lower energy recovery losses (e.g., by using pressurized feed storage) in order to reduce energy consumption by up to 8%. These modifications are more complex and hence capital expenses would determine overall feasibility of such designs to improve seawater desalination.

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Section: Effect Of Tank Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

Practical aspects of batch RO design for energy-efficient seawater desalination

Swaminathan

Tow

Stover³

et al. 2019

Desalination

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“…Considering the relevant number of studies on DCMD, this paper focuses on a possible alternative strategy to improve the thermal performance of DCMD when operating at low feed temperatures (~40 • C). It is known that in MD the water recovery factor per pass is quite low (maximum 8% [25]) and, therefore, membrane distillation plants must work with feed recirculation and with different modules in series, in order to ensure an acceptable productivity. Usually, the same membrane distillation configuration is considered for the modules which work in series.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Performance of Integrated Direct Contact and Vacuum Membrane Distillation Units

Criscuoli

2021

Energies

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An integrated membrane distillation (MD) flowsheet, consisting of direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) and vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) units, was proposed and analysed in terms of thermal performance and water recovery factor, for the first time. The same lab-scale membrane module (40 cm2) was used for carrying out experiments of DCMD and VMD at fixed feed operating conditions (deionised water at 230 L/h and ~40 °C) while working at the permeate side with deionised water at 18 °C and with a vacuum of 20 mbar for the DCMD and the VMD configuration, respectively. Based on experimental data obtained on the single modules, calculations of the permeate production, the specific thermal energy consumption (STEC) and the gained output ratio (GOR) were carried out for both single and integrated units. Moreover, the calculations were also made for a flow sheet consisting of two DCMD units in series, representing the “traditional” way in which more units of the same MD configuration are combined to enhance the water recovery factor. A significant improvement of the thermal performance (lower STEC and higher GOR) was obtained with the integrated DCMD–VMD flowsheet with respect to the DCMD units operating in series. The integration of DCMD with VMD also led to a higher permeate production and productivity/size (PS) ratio, a metric defined to compare plants in terms of the process intensification strategy.

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“…Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging technology that can overcome the current limitations of reverse osmosis (RO) [1][2][3][4]. It is a thermally-driven separation process, in which only vapors transfer through a microporous hydrophobic membrane [3,[5][6][7]. MD membranes are made of hydrophobic polymeric materials such as polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), polypropylene, and polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) [4,[8][9][10][11][12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…MD membranes are made of hydrophobic polymeric materials such as polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), polypropylene, and polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) [4,[8][9][10][11][12]. MD can treat high salinity feed solutions that RO cannot, including RO brine and wastewaters from shale gas industry [6,7,13,14]. MD can be easily combined with low grade energy sources, including solar thermal energy and waste heat from manufacturing or power plant [15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fouling-induced wetting of membranes in membrane distillation (MD) systems

Kim¹,

Cho²,

Choi³

et al. 2019

DWT

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One of the challenges of membrane distillation (MD) technology is the wetting of the membranes. However, relatively little information is available on membrane wetting induced by fouling in MD process. Accordingly, this study examines the MD membrane wetting caused by fouling under various conditions. Various feed solutions containing NaCl, CaSO 4 , humic acid, alginate, and SDS were compared using polyvinylidene fluoride and polytetrafluoroethylene membranes in a series of MD experiments. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), liquid entry pressure and dynamic contact angle were used to interpret the results from the MD wetting experiments. Results showed that wetting was induced by severe fouling in the cases of 200,000 mg L-1 NaCl solution and 200,000 mg L-1 NaCl and 2,000 mg L-1 CaSO 4 solution. The organic matters (50 mg L-1 humic acid and 50 mg L-1 alginate) did not cause neither fouling nor wetting by themselves. On the other hand, the addition of 50 mg L-1 SDS accelerated wetting. Based on these experimental results, the wetting potentials for various combinations of foulants are presented.

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Design and operation of membrane distillation with feed recirculation for high recovery brine concentration

Cited by 35 publications

References 24 publications

Practical aspects of batch RO design for energy-efficient seawater desalination

Practical aspects of batch RO design for energy-efficient seawater desalination

Thermal Performance of Integrated Direct Contact and Vacuum Membrane Distillation Units

Fouling-induced wetting of membranes in membrane distillation (MD) systems

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