ABSTRACT
Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging, thermally driven membrane separation process that has been widely investigated for many applications, including seawater desalination, food processing, and removal of volatile organic compounds from water (Lawson and Lloyd 1997; Alklaibi and Lior 2000; Burgoyne and Vahdati 2000; Curcio and Drioli 2005; El-Bourawi et al. 2006; Khayet 2011). The porous membrane in MD acts as a physical support that separates a hot feed solution from a cooling chamber containing either a liquid or a gas, depending on the MD
6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 159 6.2 Characteristics Required for MD Membranes ............................................. 160
6.2.1 High Liquid Entry Pressure .............................................................. 161 6.2.2 High Permeability ............................................................................. 161 6.2.3 Low Thermal Conductivity .............................................................. 162
6.3 Surface-Modifying Macromolecules ............................................................ 162 6.4 SMM-Modied Membranes for DCMD ...................................................... 165 6.5 Case Study: Fabrication, Characterization, and Application of SMM-
Modied Membranes .................................................................................... 166 6.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 176 References .............................................................................................................. 177
conguration. There are four possible MD congurations: direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD), air gap membrane distillation (AGMD), sweeping gas membrane distillation (SGMD), and vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) (Khayet 2011).
