A conceptual evaluation of cross-flow membrane contactor for desalination process

Abstract

The current work objectives are providing detailed understanding of heat and mass transport in a cross-flow membrane contactor for desalination process. The numerical code was developed using MATLAB software to investigate temperature and humidity distribution in the cross-flow membrane contactor at different operating parameters. Firstly, the developed model was successfully validated by experimental data. It was found that increase in saline solution inlet temperature from 40 °C to 80 °C can enhance solution outlet temperature, outlet air temperature, and humidity of outlet air from 37.38 °C to 56.79 °C, 39.48 °C–72.33 °C, and 0.0393 kg/kg to 0.2620 kg/kg respectively. Furthermore, the results showed that increase in saline solution flowrate and its inlet temperature has significant influence on the improvement of the process performance in terms of producing more pure water. However, there was no effect on temperature and humidity profiles, vapour transport though microporous membrane with the enhancement of inlet humidity of air. It was only had small positive influence on humidity humidification efficiency at inlet temperatures in the range of 40 °C–80 °C.

Keywords

• Desalination
• Humidity
• Membrane contactor
• Modelling
• Temperature