Field evaluation of membrane distillation technologies for desalination of highly saline brines

Minier-Matar, Joel; Hussain, Altaf; Janson, Arnold; Benyahia, Farid; Adham, Samer

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2014.07.027

Cited by 84 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In addition, cooling, which must be used in other configurations, can be excluded in single-pass AGMD, hence further reducing its thermal energy consumption. However, the stagnant air gap also increases the overall resistance to mass transfer; therefore, AGMD is usually operated at a lower water flux compared to other configurations [16,17,20].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Evaluating energy consumption of air gap membrane distillation for seawater desalination at pilot scale level

Duong

Cooper

Nelemans³

et al. 2016

Separation and Purification Technology

160

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This study aimed to optimise an air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) system for seawater desalination with respect to distillate production as well as thermal and electrical energy consumption. Pilot evaluation data shows a notable influence of evaporator inlet temperature and water circulation rate on process performance. An increase in both distillate production rate and energy efficiency could be obtained by increasing the evaporator inlet temperature. On the other hand, there was a trade-off between the distillate production rate and energy efficiency when the water circulation rate varied. Increasing the water circulation rate resulted in an improvement in the distillate production rate, but also an increase in both specific thermal and electrical energy consumption. Given the small driving force used in the pilot AGMD, discernible impact of feed salinity on process performance could be observed, while the effects of temperature and concentration polarisation were small. At the optimum operating conditions identified in this study, a stable AGMD operation for seawater desalination could be achieved with specific thermal and electrical energy consumption of 90 and 0.13 kW h/m3, respectively. These values demonstrate the commercial viability of AGMD for smallscale and off-grid seawater desalination where solar thermal or low-grade heat sources are readily available. Abstract: This study aimed to optimise an air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) process for seawater desalination with respect to distillate production as well as thermal and electrical energy consumption. Pilot evaluation data shows a notable influence of evaporator inlet temperature and water circulation rate on process performance. An increase in both distillate production rate and energy efficiency could be obtained by increasing the evaporator inlet temperature. On the other hand, there was a trade-off between the distillate production rate and energy efficiency when the water circulation rate varied. Increasing the water circulation rate resulted in an improvement in the distillate production rate, but also an increase in both specific thermal and electrical energy consumption. Given the small driving force used in the pilot AGMD, discernible impact of feed salinity on process performance could be observed, while the effects of temperature and concentration polarisation were small. At the optimum operating conditions identified in this study, a stable AGMD operation for seawater desalination could be achieved with specific thermal and electrical energy consumption of 90 and 0.13 kWh/m 3 , respectively. These values demonstrate the commercial viability of AGMD for small-scale and off-grid seawater desalination where solar thermal or low-grade heat sources are readily available.

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confidence: 99%

“…AGMD has a higher thermal efficiency compared to DCMD but lower process complexity compared to SGMD and VMD. Therefore, AGMD has been the most widely studied configuration for seawater MD desalination at pilot-scale level [15][16][17].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating energy consumption of air gap membrane distillation for seawater desalination at pilot scale level

Duong

Cooper

Nelemans³

et al. 2016

Separation and Purification Technology

160

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“…On the other hand, a few MD studies related to drinking water production reported on the effectiveness of coagulation as a pretreatment approach [130,134]. Gryta [130] showed the improved permeate flux pattern of MD system using groundwater feed solution with the addition of contact clarifier pretreatment. In this study, the groundwater was chemically pretreated in a clarifier, involving coagulation with ferrous sulphate heptahydrate and softening with calcium hydroxide followed by sand filtration.…”

Section: G Naidu Et Al / Desalination and Water Treatment 17mentioning

confidence: 99%

A review on fouling of membrane distillation

Naidu

Jeong

Vigneswaran

et al. 2015

Desalination and Water Treatment

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A B S T R A C TMembrane distillation (MD) has been developed for the past 40 years. Nevertheless, only in recent times, MD technology has shown substantial progress, including the development of a few commercial systems. In this study, a comprehensive review is carried out on the application of MD for the production of drinking water. Based on a broad perspective, this review describes the applications of MD for drinking water production, its advantages, and limitations. Specifically, this review focuses on the scaling and organic fouling phenomena in MD for drinking water production as one of the major challenge to MD implementation. The fouling and wetting phenomena in MD is discussed in detail as well as fouling detection methods, the influence of feed solution characteristics, and operational parameters on MD fouling and related areas requiring future investigations. The study highlights a number of approaches on fouling reduction in MD.

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“…A more comprehensive evaluation should be conducted to identify the most cost-effective pretreatment for PPW. To determine the effect of pretreatment, FO experiments were conducted with treated and untreated PPW as feed; and 70,000 mg/L NaCl as DS which is the typical of the TDS of the brines from thermal desalination plants [30,31]. The temperature of both streams was kept constant at 25°C, the membrane orientation was AL-FS and the crossflow velocity of both feed and draw was set at 20 cm/s.…”

Section: Effect Of Pretreatment On Process Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Advances in Application of Forward Osmosis Technology for Volume Reduction of Produced/Process Water from Gas-Field Operations

Minier-Matar

Hussain

Santos

et al. 2015

Day 4 Wed, December 09, 2015

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Produced and process water (PPW) associated with gas production are often characterized by low total dissolved solids (TDS) and moderate organic content. The oil and gas (O&G) industry in Qatar currently practices disposal of PPW via deep well injection. To ensure long-term sustainability of the reservoir, Qatar operators aim to reduce the PPW disposal quantity by 50%. Recently, Qatargas had initiated a project to recycle process water and thus, reduce disposal volumes, by using commercial advanced water treatment technologies. For future projects/developments, the authors of this paper have proposed and evaluated, through funding by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), an adaptation of forward osmosis (FO) membrane process for PPW concentration, which can be a cost-efficient alternative to achieve 50% volume reduction of PPW.In the first step of conventional FO, a draw solution (DS) of high osmotic pressure is used as driving force to Љpull-inЉ fresh water from the feed through a membrane into the DS. In the second step, and requiring significant energy, water is recovered from the regenerated DS by various methods depending on the DS used. In this project, brine from thermal desalination plant was used as DS and PPW as feed. Due to the salinity difference between the DS and the PPW, natural osmosis resulted in water permeating from the PPW into the DS, reducing the volume of PPW. Instead of recovering permeated water from the DS, the diluted DS can be directly discharged into the Arabian Gulf bringing an additional benefit by discharging lower salinity brine to the aquatic environment.Commercial flat sheet membranes and hollow fiber (HF) membranes provided by Singapore Membrane Technology Centre have been tested through bench-scale experiments and the impact of various operating parameters such as DS concentration and temperature was investigated. Results indicated that FO can successfully treat the PPW to achieve the target volume reduction of 50%. The average flux for the HF membranes with pretreated feed was 17 L/m 2h (LMH) using 1M NaCl as DS. Organics passage from the feed to the DS was below detection limits which mitigates the potential concern of organics leaching into the Arabian Gulf.Appropriate pretreatment of the PPW is required to minimize membrane fouling. Results showed a flux decline of approximately 10% over 5 hours when the PPW was used without pretreatment. The fouling was attributed to the organics present in the PPW. Different pretreatment options were evaluated to reduce membrane fouling including: ceramic membranes, activated carbon; and an organosilica adsorbent. To validate the project concept, long-term experiments were conducted mimicking field conditions. Overall, the results indicated FO is cost-efficient in reducing PPW injection volume and pilot testing is recommended to further demonstrate treatment feasibility of the process.

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Field evaluation of membrane distillation technologies for desalination of highly saline brines

Cited by 84 publications

References 11 publications

Evaluating energy consumption of air gap membrane distillation for seawater desalination at pilot scale level

Evaluating energy consumption of air gap membrane distillation for seawater desalination at pilot scale level

A review on fouling of membrane distillation

Advances in Application of Forward Osmosis Technology for Volume Reduction of Produced/Process Water from Gas-Field Operations

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