(378v) A General Predictive Model for Comparative Study of Vacuum Membrane Distillation and Sweeping Gas Membrane Distillation

Membrane distillation is an emerging thermal membrane technology for the separation of salts and other non-volatile compounds from water streams. The process offers a unique solution for the treatment of concentrated solutions with high total dissolved solids, which are not viable for reverse osmosis. One of the major challenges associated with MD is the low energy efficiency, which is mainly due to the loss of the latent heat of evaporation. Therefore, multiple strategies are proposed to integrate MD with other conventional technologies for proper heat integration. We are designing a modular, integrated mechanical vapour compression-membrane distillation (MVC-MD) to improve the energy efficiency of the MD.

Two different MD configurations could be utilized for designing MVC-MD: vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) and sweeping gas membrane distillation (SGMD). Unfortunately, these two MD configurations have been remained as the least studied MD configurations. In this talk, we will present the basis for designing the first MVC-MD unit based on VMD and SGMD configuration. These two MD configurations represent the two extremes that MVC could be operational. We will discuss the optimized conditions of a sweeping gas-assisted vacuum membrane distillation unit that could be integrated with MVC to achieve respectable energy efficiencies. Our experimental work will be integrated with our process-level Aspen Custom Modeler simulations to further optimize the integrated MVC-MD unit, which will guide the future efforts to further optimizing MVC-MD process.