(565d) Membrane Engineering for Zero Liquid Discharge in Seawater Desalination

Membrane engineering
for zero liquid discharge in seawater desalination

E. Drioli^{1, 2, 3},  F.
Macedonio^{1, 2}, A. Ali² 

¹
National Research Council - Institute on Membrane Technology (ITM?CNR), Via Pietro BUCCI, c/o The University of Calabria, cubo 17C,
87036 Rende CS, Italy

²
The University of Calabria - Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials, cubo 44A, Via Pietro BUCCI, 87036
Rende CS, Italy

³Hanyang University, WCU Energy Engineering
Department, Room 917 9th Floor FTC Bldg., 17 Haengdang-dong,
Seongdong-gu, Seoul 133-791 S. Korea

The reliability on
seawater for industrial, drinking and household purposes has enormously
increased in many parts of the world. Traditionally, pressure driven membrane
based processes have been employed for seawater desalination. However, the
pressure driven processes have some associated drawbacks that need to be
addressed, operation at high pressure and the disposal of brine being major
hurdles that adversely affect the process economy and cause environmental concerns.
The use of new membrane based operation can't only resolve the problem of waste
handling but also possesses the potential to boost the overall economy of the
process. Membrane distillation (MD) is one of the advanced membrane based
processes that can utilize waste grade energy including the solar and
geothermal energy and can greatly enhance the recovery of the process. MD can
be used to produce ultrapure water and can also be employed to recover the
valuable crystals of different salts from the brine.
However, MD is not fully mature process yet and requires further attention to
understand the process and to improve its efficiency. Preparation of membranes
specifically designed for MD applications, thermal polarization and coupling of
flux with concentration at high feed concentration require special focus to
utilize the potential of MD in more efficient way.