Evolution of Membrane Surface Properties for Membrane Distillation: A Mini Review

Abstract

To date, the membrane development for membrane distillation (MD) application is growing in line with the increasing volume of various types of wastewaters discharged into environment. MD is a liquid-vapor separation process and a hydrophobic membrane is used to retain the liquid. Theoretically, the hydrophobic membrane can achieve 100% rejection of non-volatile components that dissolved in feed liquids. As a result, MD has received significant attention in water recovery from saline water as well as wastewaters. Nevertheless, in addition to the scaling problem due to salts, the hydrophobicity property of membrane becomes a concern when dealing with challenging wastewaters which contain various types of low surface tension components such as oils, grease, alcohols, organics and surfactants. The membrane pore wetting due to salts deposition fouling and low surface tension components subsequently reduces the flux and even fails the liquid-vapor separation process. This article briefly discusses the transformation of MD membrane from hydrophobic to superhydrophobic and omniphobic which purposely to enhance the flux and eliminate the membrane pore wetting.