The future of

drinkable water

• background
• the process
• perspective
Introduction & Motivation
 Water scarcity worldwide
 Climate change
Introduction & Motivation
 RO is still not the perfect solution
 Requires high amounts of energy
Introduction & Motivation
 RO requires high pressures (~15 bar for brackish water), thereby increasing
energy consumption;
 RO systems also waste a lot of water (~20 L of treated water per 250 L of
wastewater;
 MSF consumes large amounts of energy for evaporation unless cogenerated;
 Desalination using thermally driven MD works its way around most of the
above problems;
 MD works at low energies (waste heat use also possible), requires less
structurally demanding membranes, with permeate flux output nearly
insensitive to feed salinity.
Comparing existing technologies
Literature Overview
 MD is a thermally driven process based on vapour pressure difference
maintained across a microporous hydrophobic membrane;
 Literature Overview
 It is also important to review the currently used technology
in AGMD apparatus
Air Gap Width
and Feed Temperature
 The effects of the feed flow rate and the coolant
temperature are relatively small compared to that of
the feed temperature and the air gap width
Current challenges
 Membrane foulling
 Small permeate flux
 High production
cost
Conclusions
 Seawater desalination is being used worldwide with the
intention to shorten the gap between the supply and
demand for freshwater
 MD is a very promising technology
 MD technology is still not commercially viable
 From a sustainability perspective, MD definitely stands
ahead of contemporary desalination technologies like RO
and MSF
 Stands for en environmentally friendly alternative
Major References
1. M. Khayet, T.Matsuura, Membrane Distillation Principles and Applications,
Elsevier, B.V., 2011
2. G.L. Liu, C. Zhu, C.S. Cheung, C.W. Leung, Theoretical and experimental
studies on air gap membrane distillation, Heat Mass Transf. 34 (4) (1998) 329–
335.
3. M. Khayet, A. Velazquez, J.I. Mengual, Modelling mass transport through a
porous partition: effect of pore size distribution, J. Non-Equilib. Thermodyn.
29 (2004) 279–299.
4. L. Basini, G. D'Angelo, M. Gobbi, G.C. Sarti and C. Gostoli, A desalination
process through sweeping gas membrane distillation, Desalination, 64 (1987)
245-257
5. S. Kubota, K. Ohta, I. Hyano, M. Hirai, K. Kikuchi and Y. Murayama,
Experiments on seawater distillation by membrane distillation, Desalination,
69 (1988) 19-26.
6. A. Khalifa, D. Lawal, M. Antar, M. Khayet, Experimental and theoretical
investigation on water desalination using air gap membrane distillation,
Desalination, Volume 376, 2015, Pages 94-108