Developing and validating a dynamic model of water production by direct-contact membrane distillation.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ali E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7092998 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Summary With growing demand for freshwater resources, membrane distillation (MD) attracts intensive attention owing to the possibility of reclaiming almost 100% freshwater with superhydrophobic membranes as the pivotal separation units. Current superhydrophobic membrane still suffers relatively complex preparation process and limited membrane flux. Herein, we developed a promising route to fabricate a high-flux superhydrophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane by a simple solute and solvent co-crystallization (SSCC) method, which endowed the membrane ultra-high porosity and flux. We also found that the pore size of superhydrophobic membrane can be adjusted by controlling the crystallization process of DMSO, which gave rise to membrane higher flexibility. The membrane exhibited the outperforming desalination performance even in multiple harsh environments including different temperature, salty concentration, and pH, with/without humic acid. The membrane also displayed distinguished anti-fouling performance and long-term stability, which is quite significant for practical application. Graphical abstract Highlights • The PVDF membrane with ultra-high flux and porosity was fabricated• Pore size of membrane was adjusted by the crystallization process• The anti-fouling mechanism of superhydrophobic membrane was elucidated Membranes; Applied sciences
| S-EPMC10130471 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Water recovery from concentrated blackwater has been studied using air gap (AGMD), direct contact (DCMD) and vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) to deliver decentralised sanitation. Whilst good water quality was achieved with each configuration, differences in the rejection of volatile compounds was observed. VMD exhibited the highest rejection of volatiles, specifically ammoniacal nitrogen, of all the configurations but fouling inhibited total flux. DCMD exhibited a temperature dependent volatile rejection which resulted in poor rejection at lower feed temperatures (≤40 °C). AGMD was identified as the most promising configuration for application within decentralised sanitation, since the rejection of volatiles was consistent over a range of operating temperatures with ammonia rejection directly related to solution pH. An increase in organic colloids and particles due to faecal contamination reduced COD removal due to the induction of wetting, but was shown to be offset by adoption of a smaller pore size (0.1 μm), and when complemented with upstream solid-liquid separation within a fully integrated system, will provide a robust sanitation solution. Importantly, this work has shown that AGMD can recover water from concentrated blackwater close to international discharge and reuse regulations in a single stage process; this is significant as blackwater consists of only urine and faeces, and is thus 40 times more concentrated than municipal sewage. It is proposed that the water quality produced reflects a step change to delivering safe sanitation, and is complemented by a simple method for heat recovery integration this is similarly advantageous for resource constrained environments common to decentralised sanitation solutions.
| S-EPMC7965860 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Water scarcity is an imminent problem that humanity is beginning to attempt to solve. Among the several technologies that have been developed to mitigate water scarcity, membrane distillation is of particular note. In the present work, CuO nanoparticles capped with 1-octanethiol (CuONPs@CH) or 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecanethiol (CuONPs@CF) are prepared. The nanoparticles are characterized by FT-IR and TGA methods. Two weight losses are observed in both cases, with the decomposition of the organic fragments beginning at 158 °C and 230 °C for CuONPs@CF and CuONPs@CH, respectively. Flat sheet PVDF composite membranes containing nanoparticles are prepared by the casting solution method using nanoparticle concentrations that ranged between 2-20% with a non-woven polyester fabric as support. The obtained membranes showed a thickness of 240 ± 40 μm. According to water contact angle (87° for CuONPs@CH and 95° for CuONPs@CF, both at 10% w.t) and roughness (12 pixel for CuONPs@CH and 14 pixels for CuONPs@CF, both at 10% w.t) determinations, the hydrophobicity of membranes changed due to a decrease in surface energy, while, for naked CuONPs, the roughness factor represents the main role. Membranes prepared with capped nanoparticles showed similar porosity (60-64%). SEM micrographs show asymmetric porous membranes with a 200-nm surface pore diameter. The largest finger-like pores in the membranes prepared with CuONPs, CuONPs@CH and CuONPs@CF had values of 63 ± 10 μm, 32 ± 8 μm, and 45 ± 10 μm, respectively. These membranes were submitted to a direct contact membrane distillation module and flux values of 1.8, 2.7, and 3.9 kg(m2·h)-1 at ΔT = 30 °C were obtained for the CuONPs, CuONPs@CH, and CuONPs@CF, respectively. The membranes showed 100% salt rejection during the testing time (240 min).
| S-EPMC8227552 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD) is a promising and feasible technology for water desalination. Most of the models used to simulate DCMD are one-dimensional and/or use a linear function of vapour pressure which relies on experimentally determined parameters. In this study, the model of DCMD using Nusselt correlations was improved by coupling the continuity, momentum, and energy equations to better capture the downstream alteration of flow field properties. A logarithmic function of vapour pressure, which is independent from experiments, was used. This allowed us to analyse DCMD with different membrane properties. The results of our developed model were in good agreement with the DCMD experimental results, with less than 7% deviation. System performance metrics, including water flux, temperature, and concentration polarisation coefficient and thermal efficiency, were analysed by varying inlet feed and permeate temperature, inlet velocity, inlet feed concentration, channel length. In addition, twenty-two commercial membranes were analysed to obtain a real vision on the influence of membrane characteristics on system performance metrics. The results showed that the feed temperature had the most significant effect on water flux and thermal efficiency. The increased feed temperature enhanced the water flux and thermal efficiency; however, it caused more concentration and temperature polarisation. On the other hand, the increased inlet velocity was found to provide increased water flux and reduced temperature and concertation polarisation as well. It was also found that the membrane properties, especially thickness and porosity, can affect the DCMD performance significantly. A two-fold increase of feed temperature increased the water flux and thermal efficiency, 10-fold and 27%, respectively; however, it caused an increase in temperature and concertation polarisation, at 48% and 34%, respectively. By increasing Reynolds number from 80 to 1600, the water flux, CPC, and TPC enhanced by 2.3-fold, 2%, and 21%, respectively. The increased feed concentration from 0 to 250 [g/L] caused a 26% reduction in water flux. To capture the downstream alteration of flow properties, it was shown that the ratio of inlet value to outlet value of system performance metrics decreased significantly throughout the module. Therefore, improvement over the conventional model is undeniable, as the new model can assist in achieving optimal operation conditions.
| S-EPMC8145701 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m-2·h-1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.
| S-EPMC6616361 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In order to enhance the separation performance and reduce the heat loss of transmembrane for membrane distillation, the thermal efficiency and hydrophobicity of the membrane distillation need to be simultaneously enhanced. In this work, a polyvinylidene difluoride/polyethylene glycol terephthalate (PVDF/PET) hydrophobic/hydrophilic membrane has been prepared by non-solvent phase induction method. Nanosized silica aerogel (SiAG) with high porosity has been added to the composite membranes. The modifying effects and operating conditions on permeate flux and thermal efficiency in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) are investigated. Furthermore, the latent heat of vaporization and the heat transfer across the membranes have been compared for SiAG addition, which indicates that the composite PVDF@SiAG/PET membranes demonstrate a great potential for distillation-separation application due to their high heat efficiency.
| S-EPMC10535353 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Integrated wastewater treatment processes are accepted as the best option for sustainable and unrestricted onsite water reuse. In this study, moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR), membrane bioreactor (MBR), and direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) treatment steps were integrated successively to obtain the combined advantages of these processes for industrial wastewater treatment. The MBBR step acts as the first step in the biological treatment and also mitigates foulant load on the MBR. Similarly, MBR acts as the second step in the biological treatment and serves as a pretreatment prior to the DCMD step. The latter acts as a final treatment to produce high-quality water. A laboratory scale integrated MBBR/MBR/DCMD experimental system was used for assessing the treatment efficiency of primary treated (PTIWW) and secondary treated (STIWW) industrial wastewater in terms of permeate water flux, effluent quality, and membrane fouling. The removal efficiency of total dissolved solids (TDS) and effluent permeate flux of the three-step process (MBBR/MBR/DCMD) were better than the two-step (MBR/DCMD) process. In the three-step process, the average removal efficiency of TDS was 99.85% and 98.16% when treating STIWW and PTIWW, respectively. While in the case of the two-step process, the average removal efficiency of TDS was 93.83% when treating STIWW. Similar trends were observed for effluent permeate flux values which were found, in the case of the three-step process, 62.6% higher than the two-step process, when treating STIWW in both cases. Moreover, the comparison of the quality of the effluents obtained with the analysed configurations with that obtained by Jeddah Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant proved the higher performance of the proposed membrane processes.
| S-EPMC9863120 | biostudies-literature
Project description:membrane distillation biofilm Raw sequence reads
| PRJNA481855 | ENA
Project description:Membrane distillation (MD) has shown promise for concentrating a wide variety of brines, but the knowledge is limited on how different brines impact salt scaling, flux decline, and subsequent wetting. Furthermore, past studies have lacked critical details and analysis to enable a physical understanding, including the length of experiments, the inclusion of salt kinetics, impact of antiscalants, and variability between feed-water types. To address this gap, we examined the system performance, water recovery, scale formation, and saturation index of a lab-scale vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) in long-running test runs approaching 200 h. The tests provided a comparison of a variety of relevant feed solutions, including a synthetic seawater reverse osmosis brine with a salinity of 8.0 g/L, tap water, and NaCl, and included an antiscalant. Saturation modeling indicated that calcite and aragonite were the main foulants contributing to permeate flux reduction. The longer operation times than typical studies revealed several insights. First, scaling could reduce permeate flux dramatically, seen here as 49% for the synthetic brine, when reaching a high recovery ratio of 91%. Second, salt crystallization on the membrane surface could have a long-delayed but subsequently significant impact, as the permeate flux experienced a precipitous decline only after 72 h of continuous operation. Several scaling-resistant impacts were observed as well. Although use of an antiscalant did not reduce the decrease in flux, it extended membrane operational time before surface foulants caused membrane wetting. Additionally, numerous calcium, magnesium, and carbonate salts, as well as silica, reached very high saturation indices (>1). Despite this, scaling without wetting was often observed, and scaling was consistently reversible and easily washed. Under heavy scaling conditions, many areas lacked deposits, which enabled continued operation; existing MD performance models lack this effect by assuming uniform layers. This work implies that longer times are needed for MD fouling experiments, and provides further scaling-resistant evidence for MD.
| S-EPMC7463528 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In this research work, novel perfluorooctanoic acid-modified melamine (PFOM) was synthesized as a hydrophobic filler using a facile one-pot synthesis. PFOM incorporating polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) solution was cast on a cellulose sheet to prepare a dual-layered membrane employing the phase-inversion technique for direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) application. The influence of PFOM to tailor the dual-layered membrane performance was then investigated. The long perfluoro chain in PFOM hydrophobic fillers increased the surface roughness of the membranes due to its random overlapping with PVDF backbone, and these membranes exhibited a higher water contact angle value. The increase in pore size and membrane porosity did not significantly influence the liquid entry pressure of water (LEPw). The microporous membranes displayed good mechanical strength for use in the test setup. Pure water permeation was the highest (6.9 kg m-2 h-1) for membrane (M1) with 1 wt% of PFOM when tested with a simulated sea-water solution (3.5% w/v NaCl) in the direct contact distillation mode. These membranes also achieved the theoretical salt-rejection of 99.9%, thus confirming the potential of these membranes to be investigated for large scale membrane distillation (MD) applications like desalination of seawater.
| S-EPMC9076459 | biostudies-literature