LITERATURE REVIEW OF MEMBRANE DISTILLATION FOR HYPERSALINE BRINE WATER DESALINATION: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES

• Main Author: Sami Shatri, Ahmad
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/55814
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Water is a necessity in every part of life. The exponential growth of the world population and the increase in the industrial use of water are the main reasons responsible of water scarcity problem. This situation has forced us to adopt different mechanisms to obtain fresh water. Desalination of seawater has become the main option to overcome the problem of water scarcity. Reverse osmosis (RO) is the most commonly utilized method for desalinating seawater. However, RO discharges brine to the environment which may pose several environmental issues. Hypersaline brine water is water with salinity level greater than 200 mg/l. Due to the extreme salinity, the utilization of RO to desalinate hypersaline brine would be uneconomical as RO requires prohibitively high pressurizations. Membrane distillation (MD) presents itself as a promising technology to combat this problem due to its ability to utilize low grade heat to desalinate hypersaline water, and produce useful crystal salts for other use. However, challenges such as fouling, wetting, and low energy efficiency hinders the industrialization of MD. Therefore, this literature review goes into depth on the major challenges of MD, how and why they occur, and the technologies/modifications that is incorporated. Modifying the membrane by adding nanoparticle coating has proven to delay fouling and wetting. Whereas, power generation in the form of electricity by using hybrid MD (MD-RED) or cold production by utilizing polygeneration system is proven to increase energy efficiency.