The membrane distillation process is a new desalination process which offers high quality product water, is simple and highly self-adjusting, and is easy to operate and maintain.
However, the results of fundamental experiments with plate-and-frame type modules in a single-stage parallel stack indicate a heat efficiency of less than 50%. To develop a practical membrane distillation process, a multi-stage membrane distillation process and a suitable membrane module with high efficiency needs to be developed to make the heat efficiency of the whole systen as high as possible.
In this paper, experimental results on heat efficiency, operating and conditions and product water quality for two kinds of tested molecules are presented.
