Investigation on performance of direct contact membrane distillation under different channel designs

• Main Author: Huang, Kee Kee
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TC Hydraulic engineering. Ocean engineering; TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/6866/1/ME_2006061_FYP_report_%2D_KEE_KEE_HUANG.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/6866/
• Institution: Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman

Freshwater is essential for all living organisms, serving as a fundamental requirement for biological processes. Addressing the increased demand for freshwater or its scarcity can be achieved through desalination processes, such as membrane distillation (MD), which desalts seawater. This study investigates the impact of different channel designs on the performance of Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD) systems. It was found that a channel with a higher channel height yields better performance and achieves optimal results when the channel height is close to the optimum. However, further increases in channel height beyond the optimum lead to a decline in performance. Similarly, for the fin-to-channel width ratio, a decrease in the ratio yields better performance, with the best results obtained when the ratio is close to the optimum. Further decreases in the ratio beyond the optimum also lead to a decline in performance. Furthermore, a channel design with fewer fins was found to have worse performance compared to a design with more fins. Therefore, a channel design with a channel height of 1.6 mm, a channel width of 2.6 mm, a fin width of 2.13 mm, and a total of 9 fins, which is close to the optimum, provides the best performance results, with an average permeate flux of 4.92 g/(m²s) and a 32.8% improvement in the DCMD process.