Membrane Wetting During Membrane Distillation

This report details an investigation into the process of Membrane Distillation (MD) focusing on one of the major problems faced when undergoing water treatment through membrane distillation, Membrane Wetting. Throughout the report, the importance of membrane distillation, its application in the water treatment industry and the complications brought along by membrane wetting will be addressed. The literature review will then go into detail about what causes wetting and how it can be identified. Currently existing methods to detect wetting will be studied throughout this report. Its strengths as well as shortcomings will be discussed. From this, a novel technique to identify wetting will be introduced that will more accurately, identify membrane wetting during membrane distillation. To test the proposed technique in its ability to detect wetting, a range of experiments is to be set up and the proposed unit is to be tested under these varying conditions. The results obtained from the performed experiments will then be compared against the results from the currently existing techniques and reasons for why the proposed technique is more accurate will be addressed.