Integration of Direct Contact Membrane Distillation and Solar Thermal Systems for Production of Purified Water: Dynamic Simulation

Remlaoui, Ahmed; Nehari, Driss

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-37207-1_17

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…With the fast growing population and rapid industrialization, water desalination technologies have been playing a vital role in fresh water supply (Byrne et al, 2015). However, conventional desalination methods, such as multi-stage flash and reverse osmosis, suffer from high energy consumption (Nutakki, 2017). Recently, membrane distillation (MD) has emerged as a promising alternative for desalination due to its relatively low working temperature and potential to utilize low-grade heat or renewable energy (Karanikola et al, 2019;Bamasag et al, 2021;Samadi et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational fluid dynamics modelling and optimization of solar powered direct contact membrane distillation with localized heating for off-grid desalination

Samadi,

Di Profio

et al. 2024

Front. Membr. Sci. Technol.

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Introduction: Membrane distillation (MD) is a promising technique for desalination, capable of utilizing low-grade heat. However, MD faces some challenges such as temperature polarization. To overcome these issues, direct solar MD with localized heating (LHMD) has emerged as a cost-effective and efficient solution by leveraging solar energy.Methods: This study focuses on process optimization of LHMD using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. CFD simulation was applied to investigate the fluid behavior, heat transfer, and mass transfer within the system. Several key factors, including module geometry, process configuration, solar irradiation, feed flow rate, and feed temperature are investigated.Results: The effects of these parameters on the distillate production rate, thermal behavior, and energy efficiency, are evaluated for optimization. At the optimal conditions, 1 m2 membrane in a module with a length of 50 cm and a channel height of 1.5 mm under a counter-current flow generates 12 L drinking water per day, which meets the basic drinking water demands for 6 people. Over 70% gain output ratio can be achieved when the feed temperature is more than 20°C, the feed velocity is 1–1.5 mm/s, and the feed salinity is less than 1000 mol·m−3. This setup can also produce 6 L of distilled water per day when a water with a salinity six times higher than seawater if the feed velocity is sufficiently low.Discussions: The main feature of the localized heating is the reverse temperature polarization on the feed side, leading to the increase in energy efficiency and the ease of scale-up.

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