Membrane Distillation Desalination System With Gap Circulation and Cooling Using a Built-in Heat Exchanger

2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Atia E. Khalifa

Abstract A comprehensive experimental investigation is conducted to evaluate the performance of a new flux-enhanced compact water gap membrane distillation (WGMD) module design with gap circulation and cooling for water desalination. The new design uses a separate circulation loop to circulate the gap water, and a built-in heat exchanger coil implanted inside the coolant stream channel for cooling the circulated gap water. The WGMD modules with circulation and with circulation and cooling are compared with conventional WGMD without circulation. Variations of distillate flux, temperatures, and energy consumption are presented at different design operating conditions. Circulation and cooling of the gap water greatly enhance the output flux due to gap water motion and increase the temperature difference between membrane surfaces. However, the enhancement in flux was achieved at the expense of energy consumption. Circulation and cooling of gap water are more effective with bigger gap widths. Feed flowrate showed significant effects with gap water circulation and cooling. The electrical specific energy consumption (SEC) showed the best value of 7.9 and 8.8 kWh/m3 at a feed temperature of 70 °C for both conventional WGMD and WGMD with circulation modules, while the best value of SEC for the WGMD module with gap circulation and cooling was 9.4 kWh/m3 at a feed temperature of 80 °C.

Author(s):  
Hafiz M. Ahmad ◽  
Atia E. Khalifa ◽  
Mohamed A. Antar

Membrane distillation (MD) is a separation technique used for water desalination, which operates at low feed temperatures and pressures. Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) is one of the common MD configurations where both the hot saline feed stream and the cold permeate stream are in direct contact with the two membrane surfaces. An experimental study was performed to investigate the effect of operating conditions such as feed temperature, feed flow rate, permeate temperature, and permeate flow rate on the system output flux. To check the effect of membrane degradation, the MD system was run continuously for 48 hours with raw seawater as feed and the reduction in system flux with time was observed. Results showed that increasing the feed temperature, decreasing the permeate temperature, increasing the feed and permeate flow rate yield an increase in flux. The effects of feed temperature and feed flow rate are the most significant parameters. After 48 hours of system continuous operation flux was reduced by 42.4 % but the quality of permeate (as measured by its TDS) is still very high with salt rejection factor close to 100 %. For the DCMD system under consideration, the GOR values remain between 0.8 and 1.2, for the tested range of operating temperatures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 563-572
Author(s):  
Iman Golpour ◽  
Mohammad Kaveh ◽  
Reza Amiri Chayjan ◽  
Raquel P. F. Guiné

AbstractThis research work focused on the evaluation of energy and exergy in the convective drying of potato slices. Experiments were conducted at four air temperatures (40, 50, 60 and 70°C) and three air velocities (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 m/s) in a convective dryer, with circulating heated air. Freshly harvested potatoes with initial moisture content (MC) of 79.9% wet basis were used in this research. The influence of temperature and air velocity was investigated in terms of energy and exergy (energy utilization [EU], energy utilization ratio [EUR], exergy losses and exergy efficiency). The calculations for energy and exergy were based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Results indicated that EU, EUR and exergy losses decreased along drying time, while exergy efficiency increased. The specific energy consumption (SEC) varied from 1.94 × 105 to 3.14 × 105 kJ/kg. The exergy loss varied in the range of 0.006 to 0.036 kJ/s and the maximum exergy efficiency obtained was 85.85% at 70°C and 0.5 m/s, while minimum exergy efficiency was 57.07% at 40°C and 1.5 m/s. Moreover, the values of exergetic improvement potential (IP) rate changed between 0.0016 and 0.0046 kJ/s and the highest value occurred for drying at 70°C and 1.5 m/s, whereas the lowest value was for 70°C and 0.5 m/s. As a result, this knowledge will allow the optimization of convective dryers, when operating for the drying of this food product or others, as well as choosing the most appropriate operating conditions that cause the reduction of energy consumption, irreversibilities and losses in the industrial convective drying processes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adnan Alhathal Alanezi ◽  
H. Abdallah ◽  
E. El-Zanati ◽  
Adnan Ahmad ◽  
Adel O. Sharif

A new O-ring flat sheet membrane module design was used to investigate the performance of Vacuum Membrane Distillation (VMD) for water desalination using two commercial polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) flat sheet hydrophobic membranes. The design of the membrane module proved its applicability for achieving a high heat transfer coefficient of the order of 103 (W/m2 K) and a high Reynolds number (Re). VMD experiments were conducted to measure the heat and mass transfer coefficients within the membrane module. The effects of the process parameters, such as the feed temperature, feed flow rate, vacuum degree, and feed concentration, on the permeate flux have been investigated. The feed temperature, feed flow rate, and vacuum degree play an important role in enhancing the performance of the VMD process; therefore, optimizing all of these parameters is the best way to achieve a high permeate flux. The PTFE membrane showed better performance than the PVDF membrane in VMD desalination. The obtained water flux is relatively high compared to that reported in the literature, reaching 43.8 and 52.6 (kg/m2 h) for PVDF and PTFE, respectively. The salt rejection of NaCl was higher than 99% for both membranes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (02) ◽  
pp. 112-123
Author(s):  
Rakesh Kumar Raigar ◽  
Hari Niwas Mishra

Roasting is one of the thermo-mechanical operation in cereals and oilseeds processing. Low-capacity machine for mechanisation of roasting is necessary for small-scale processing. A conduction-type motorised rotary roaster (8 kg per batch) was designed and developed for roasting of peanuts. Performance of the roaster was evaluated in terms of moisture loss, scorched kernels, and specific energy consumption for accelerated roasting of peanut. The effects of different roasting conditions were studied to determine the optimum operating conditions of the roaster. Quality indices of peanuts as moisture loss (kg.kg-1), scorched kernel (%), and specific energy consumption (kWh.kg-1) were dependent on the operating conditions. The optimum value of moisture loss (0.041± 0.003 kg.kg-1), scorched kernel (0.93± 0.0.004 % ), and specific energy consumption (0.185 ± 0.005 kWh.kg-1) were obtained at roasting temperature of 170°C, roasting time of 15 min, and rotational speed of 20 rpm for roasting peanut. The roasting characteristics of peanut decreased linearly with increase in the temperature and time; and decrease in the rotational speed. The inferior quality parameters were observed at higher temperatures, speed and medium time of roasting. The study indicated optimum roasting temperature of peanut to be 170°C, and further increase in the process temperature had undesirable effects on roasted peanut quality due to high loss of moisture.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noor A. Mohammad Ameen ◽  
Salah S. Ibrahim ◽  
Qusay F. Alsalhy ◽  
Alberto Figoli

The path for water molecules transported across a membrane in real porous membranes has been considered to be a constant factor in the membrane distillation (MD) process (i.e., constant tortuosity); as such, its effect on membrane performance at various operating conditions has been ignored by researchers. Therefore, a simultaneous heat and mass transfer model throughout the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) module was developed in this study by taking into account the hypothetical path across the membrane as a variable factor within the operating conditions because it exhibits the changes to the mass transfer resistance across the membrane under the DCMD run. The DCMD process was described by the developed model using a system of nonlinear equations and solved numerically by MATLAB software. The performance of the poly-tetra-fluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane was examined to treat 200 g/L NaCl saline at various operating conditions. The simulation results in the present work showed that the hypothetical proposed path across the membrane has a variable value and was affected by changing the feed temperature and feed concentration. The results estimated by the developed model showed an excellent conformity with the experimental results. The salt rejection remained high (greater than 99.9%) in all cases. The temperature polarization coefficient for the DCMD ranged between 0.88 and 0.967, and the gain output ratio (GOR) was 0.893. The maximum thermal efficiency of the system was 84.5%.


2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (12) ◽  
pp. 2685-2691 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Barillon ◽  
S. Martin Ruel ◽  
C. Langlais ◽  
V. Lazarova

Energy consumption remains the key factor for the optimisation of the performance of membrane bioreactors (MBRs). This paper presents the results of the detailed energy audits of six full-scale MBRs operated by Suez Environnement in France, Spain and the USA based on on-site energy measurement and analysis of plant operation parameters and treatment performance. Specific energy consumption is compared for two different MBR configurations (flat sheet and hollow fibre membranes) and for plants with different design, loads and operation parameters. The aim of this project was to understand how the energy is consumed in MBR facilities and under which operating conditions, in order to finally provide guidelines and recommended practices for optimisation of MBR operation and design to reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atia E. Khalifa

Abstract Membrane distillation (MD) is a promising thermally-driven membrane separation technology for water desalination. In MD, water vapor is being separated from the hot feed water solution using a micro-porous hydrophobic membrane, due to the difference in vapor pressures across the membrane. In the present work, experiments are conducted to compare the performance of water gap membrane distillation (WGMD) and air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) modules under the main operating and design conditions including the feed and coolant temperatures, membrane material and pore sizes, and the gap width. Results showed that the WGMD module produced higher fluxes as compared to the AGMD module, for all test conditions. The feed temperature is the dominant factor affecting the system flux. The permeate flux increases with reducing the gap width for both water and air gap modules. However, WGMD module was found to be less sensitive to the change in the gap width compared to the AGMD module. The PTFE membrane produced higher permeate flux as compared to the PVDF membrane. Bigger mean pore diameter enhanced the permeate flux, however, this enhancement is marginal at high feed temperatures. With increasing the feed temperature, the GOR values increase and the specific energy consumption decreases.


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