Research Abstracts

• Chemical heterogeneity of RO membranes was first investigated using AFM. • AFM probes were designed by employing negative CML and positive AAL colloids. • Chemical heterogeneity was more pronounced with AAL probe than CML probe. • RO membranes showed different charge distribution despite similar ze

Submerged vacuum membrane distillation is an alternative to conventional membrane distillation configurations which offers lower energy consumption and higher thermal efficiency. The feasibility of a submerged vacuum membrane distillation system for inland desalination was investigated. Relatively sim

Performance of different pretreatment systems with ultrafiltration (UF) prior to reverse osmosis (RO) for desalting seawater was assessed in this paper. The pilot trial was operated on seawater from Bohai Bay in Tianjin using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber UF membrane. During these experim

Membrane distillation (MD) is a process in which the driving force for mass transfer is temperature gradient rather than conventional ones based on density, static pressure, chemical nature, affinity, and freezing point gradients. Using a porous hydrophobic membrane, MD comes into four configurations;

Desalinated waters are poor in minerals thus, a certain degree of re-mineralization is essential so as to make the water palatable and non-corrosive as well as to meet health requirement. Selection of re-mineralization process is determined by regulatory water quality standards. This review summariz

This paper describes the development of a solar-assisted multi-stage vacuum membrane distillation (SMVMD) system. The proposed system employs heat recovery unit (HRU) for the energy recovery from the permeate vapor to the feed seawater. Temperature modulating (TM) scheme is also implemented for the

Membrane distillation (MD) has become an area of rapidly increasing research and development since the 1990s, providing a potentially cost effective thermally-driven desalination technology when paired with waste heat, solar thermal or geothermal heat sources. One principal challenge for MD is scali

• Reduction of distillate flux is primarily caused by precipitation of CaCO3 and CaSO4. • Changing of pH in hot bulk brine provides early indication of scaling formation. • Inline cartridge filtration improves DCMD operational time and water recovery. • Antiscalant prolongs DCMD operational time by mi

Membrane distillation (MD) is a promising desalination technology for water recovery from high-salinity solutions such as RO brine. Despite its great potential, MD has not been industrially realized because this technique generates a lower flux than reverse osmosis processes and exhibits a lower ther

Reverse osmosis (RO) is a pressure driven membrane process which has been widely applied and recognized as the leading technology of desalination process. Improvement in RO technology including advanced membrane material, module and process design, and energy recovery has led to cost reduction which