ABSTRACT
Membrane distillation (MD) can provide new ways to treat seawater, groundwater, and industrial wastewaters but publications presenting real experiences in applications are needed. This chapter provides a review of published pilot trials undertaken for specific industry applications. A unique feature of this review is on industrial wastewater treatment as opposed to seawater desalination for drinking water. The review also shows the means by which the pilot plants were integrated into the process, tackling issues such as accessing variable heat and cooling supply and the challenges treating actual industry waters. The review found that only in the last 3–4 years, publications on MD pilots aligned to various industries have emerged. These were especially for seawater desalination, but importantly for treating a range of important industrial wastewaters. Sources of heat obtained for these trials have included site boilers, hot wastewaters, power cycle exhausts, and solar thermal collectors. Pilot trials have run continuously for up to 3 months using hydrophobic membranes provided from commercial suppliers. In these cases, the trials often managed to prevent membrane wetting while flux loss from fouling could be reversed by chemical cleaning. More experiences on current and future trials needs to be published as reference cases to increase technology confidence by showing operation for sufficient periods (months to years), economic assessments, and maintained operation after repeated cleaning. Further, while currently available commercial membranes may see the success of MD in some industries, custom-made membranes that can tolerate challenging feeds could further expand applications.
