Performance and Optimization of Air Gap Membrane Distillation System for Water Desalination

Abstract

Membrane distillation is a developing thermally driven membrane separation technology used for water desalination. The air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) is one of the important basic configurations for applying this technology. The performance of AGMD system is experimentally investigated at different operating and design variables, including feed temperature, feed flow rate, coolant temperature, coolant flow rate, and air gap width. Taguchi method and applied regression were employed to model and optimize the performance of the AGMD system, by obtaining the best parameters combination based on three different levels of significant variables. Analysis of variance was performed to determine the effect of each factor on the system’s performance. A regression model was subsequently generated for calculating the performance of the AGMD system. Feed temperature and the air gap width are the most effective parameters on the performance of AGMD system. The measured and calculated optimal fluxes were found to be 76.0457 and 74.5916 kg/m2 hr; respectively. The percentage difference between model calculations and the experimental results at optimum conditions is 1.95 %.