Sensitivity Analysis of Air Gap Membrane Distillation

Abstract

In this study, parametric sensitivity analysis using dimesionless sensitivity analysis and temperature polarization was used to investigate the sensitivity of the mass flux to the different parameters associated with the air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) process for pure water production. The model of AGMD used in this study is the approximate model proposed by Jonsson et al., which neglects the temperature polarization effect. The effect of temperature polarization is studied using another model developed by Banat and Simandl. The results obtained show that the mass flux of pure water production is highly sensitive to the feed bulk temperature, membrane porisity at low porosity values, and air gap width. Results also show that increasing the membrane thickness decreases the mass flux of pure water and decreases the temperature polarization effect. In addition, results show that the temperature polarization effect becomes significant as feed bulk temperature increases. Increasing the film heat‐transfer coefficients, increasing the diffusion path, or decreasing the membrane porosity can reduce the temperature polarization effect significantly.