Water Flux Prediction in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation Subject to Inorganic Fouling.

ABSTRACT: Freshwater is a limited resource, which has driven the development of new purification and water-reuse technologies. One promising technology for water treatment is membrane distillation (MD). One of the main problems of MD, and of many desalination technologies, is membrane fouling, which reduces the performance of the membrane. This work presents a mathematical model that aims to predict distillate fluxes in direct-contact MD when fouling occurs as salts are deposited onto the membrane surface, forming an inorganic fouling layer. The mathematical model uses a heat- and mass-transfer formulation for prediction of the distillate flux under steady state conditions, and it is combined with the cake-filtration theory to represent the distillate fluxes after the onset of membrane fouling. Mode

SUBMITTER: Suarez F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8879881 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature