What is it about?
This study shows that the presence of the air bubbles on the surface of the superhydrophobic membrane in a direct contact membrane distillation setup inhibited the occurrence of wetting (~100% salt rejection) even for high concentrations of the surface-active species (up to 0.8 mM SDS) in the feed solution while no undesirable influence on the permeate flux was observed.
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Why is it important?
- For the first time, air recharging for wetting prevention in a full MD setup was examined. - Air recharging combined with superhydrophobic membranes prevented wetting for low surface tension saline solutions with ~100% salt rejection. - Our results suggest that air recharging is critical for MD applications with feed waters containing organic compounds or surfactants.
Perspectives
Although membrane distillation offers distinctive advantages over conventional separation methods, preventing the hydrophobic membranes from becoming wet challenges its potential industrial application. This paper introduces a novel approach to prevent the liquid feed with low surface tensions from penetrating into the membrane pores.
M.Sc. Mohammad Rezaei
Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Wetting prevention in membrane distillation through superhydrophobicity and recharging an air layer on the membrane surface, Journal of Membrane Science, May 2017, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.memsci.2017.02.013.
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