Techno-Economic Analysis of Vacuum Membrane Distillation for Seawater Desalination.

Seawater desalination is an affordable and viable solution to the growing freshwater scarcity problem in water scarce regions. The current study focuses on cost analysis of Vacuum Membrane Distillation (VMD) setup for removing salts from water. The membrane used in the flat sheet VMD module was Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) with 250 mm × 200 mm dimensions and 165 µm thickness.

Numerical analysis of permeate flux in reverse osmosis by varying strand geometry.

In regions with limited potable water availability, membrane desalination is being employed to filter water using a pressure-driven approach. Because of the high energy consumption required to produce the pressure differential needed for this method, researchers have been trying different geometric designs of spacer filaments to enhance the amount of permeate flux in terms of energy utilization. The purpose of spacer filaments is to support membranes structurally and induce turbulent mixing in spiral wound membrane desalination.