This book addresses principles and practical applications of membrane distillation and osmotic distillation, separation technologies which are gaining increasing attention due to their advantages over conventional concentration processes. • Addresses membrane and osmotic distillation, two closely related and novel processes that offer several advantages over conventional concentration processes • Has a widespread impact and application of the technology in industries such as food, environment, and nuclear clean-up / containment • Covers theoretical aspects of both processes, the properties of hydrophobic membranes, process economics, integrated processes and future prospects. • Caters the presentation caters for the diversity of readership with respect to links with membrane technologies.

This book addresses principles and practical applications of membrane distillation and osmotic distillation, separation technologies which are gaining increasing attention due to their advantages over conventional concentration processes.

Desalination is imperative to mitigate the global water scarcity as it produces drinking water from unpotable water. Currently, reverse osmosis membrane processes are widely used and account for 60% of desalination plants globally as they have lower energy requirements than other techniques, such as thermal desalination. Another promising alternative to desalination is membrane distillation (MD), which has been highlighted as one of the most promising and cost-effective desalination technologies over the last five decades. MD is a thermally driven desalination process that uses microporous and hydrophobic membranes through which only vapor can pass. Because non-volatile ions cannot pass through the membrane, MD theoretically achieves 100% salt rejection. In addition, MD is superior to other techniques as it is conducted at relatively low temperature and pressure, and is less sensitive to the feed concentration. MD is a desalination process that uses the vapor pressure difference between the feed and permeate as the driving force through the membranes. Over 2,800 scientific publications appeared in Web of Science as of September 2019 (over 400 just in 2019) describing the current state of development and potential future applications of MD. Although these publications provide excellent knowledge regarding MD, they are rather fragmented, and it is difficult to gain a complete overview of the basic principles and functions of membranes for MD configurations and their application to real plants. In this book, we introduce MD from the invention of this technique to the recent developments in membranes and processes. The membrane materials and configurations of MD processes are systematically discussed, along with an introduction to real pilot plants that have been installed and tested in the field, and an economic analysis of MD. The objective of this book is to provide a short, but reasonably comprehensive, introduction to MD to graduate students and persons with an engineering or natural science background, to gain a basic understanding of MD, and the associated materials, configurations, and applications, without studying a large number of different reference books.

This book aims to elaborate the basics and recent advances of membrane distillation (MD) as the same shows promise for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. Starting with fundamentals of MD processes, including the heat and mass transfer analysis, energy evaluation and mathematical modelling, text includes engineering and molecular design of MD membranes. Various types of hybrid systems, including freeze desalination (FD)-MD, MD-crystallization (MDC), pressure retarded osmosis (PRO)-MD and forward osmosis (FO)-MD, will be discussed in this book. Further, it summarizes the future of MD from both industrial and academic perspectives along with energy sources and economic analysis.

Membrane technology as an emerging separation process has become competitive with other separation techniques in recent decades. Among pressure-driven and isothermal membrane processes, membrane distillation (MD) as a thermally driven process has come out to put an end to hardships of such processes like distillation. MD process can be used in a wide variety of applications such as desalination and wastewater treatment. Generally, MD is a process which water is a main component of the feed solution and only water vapor can pass through a hydrophobic membrane pores. With four main configurations different from each other by their condensation procedure, the performance of MD process is limited due to the lack of appropriate module, membrane, and energy consumption rate. In recent years, many experiments have been carried out to find well-suited membrane type and module. Also, applying solar or waste heat as heat source and the capability of coupling with other processes like forward osmosis and osmotic distillation distinguish MD process from other membrane processes. This chapter addresses membrane characteristics, MD applications, transport mechanisms, and process challenges.

Osmosis Engineering provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art surrounding osmosis-based research and industrial applications. The book covers the underpinning theories, technology developments and commercial applications. Sections discuss innovative and advanced membranes and modules for osmosis separation processes (e.g., reverse osmosis, forward osmosis, pressure retarded osmosis, osmotic membrane distillation), different application of these osmosis separation processes for energy and water separation, such as the treatment of radioactive waste, oily wastewater and heavy metal removal, draw solutions, pretreatment technologies, fouling effects, the use of renewable energy driven osmotic processes, computational, environmental and economic studies, and more. Covers state-of-the-art osmotic engineering technologies and applications Presents multidisciplinary topics in engineered osmosis, including both fundamental and applied EO concepts Includes major challenges such as fouling mitigation, membrane development, pre-treatment and energy usage

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Membrane Distillation" that was published in Applied Sciences