Heat transfer intensification and scaling mitigation in bubbling-enhanced membrane distillation for brine concentration

Abstract

Membrane distillation (MD) technology is being extensively studied to address operational challenges such as undesired thermal efficiency and scaling phenomenon in recovering valuable solutes and minimizing brine disposal. This study has explored the working mechanisms of utilizing gas–liquid two-phase flow to enhance heat transfer and mitigate scaling formation in MD concentration process, based on the quantification of heat-transfer coefficients and local scaling-resistance associated with bubble size properties.

With the aid of direct observation and statistical analysis on the bubble characteristics in a specially-designed direct contact MD (DCMD) module, it was found that the bubbles with small mean bubble size and narrow size distribution were preferred for creating even flow distribution, intensifying mixing and enhancing surface shear rate. Compared to non-bubbling DCMD, the heat-transfer coefficient and temperature polarization coefficient (TPC) reached up to 2.30- and 2.13-fold, respectively, at an optimal gas flowrate of 0.2 L min−1. With the theoretical expressions for local scaling resistance derived based on the resistance-in-series model, the relative permeation flux (Jw/o|t=t1/Jw/o|t=0) in non-bubbling MD was quantified and found to rapidly decline by 65% as the concentration process progressed, consistent with the increasing trend of the ratio of local scaling resistance to the overall resistance (rfl/rov). Fortunately, the introduction of gas bubbles has shown benefits for supersaturation brine concentrating MD process – remarkably decreased the local-scaling resistance due to bubble-intensified shear stress and enhanced hydrodynamics. Also, the total water removal for the brine concentration process was significantly improved by 131% and the discharged brine volume was reduced accordingly at appropriately selected gas flow rates. Nevertheless, at inappropriately high gas flowrates, high energy consumption and potential fiber breakage should be avoided.