Engineering Commons^™

Mechanical Vibration For The Control Of Membrane Fouling In Direct Contact Membrane Distillation, Frank Y.C. Huang, Carolyn Medin, Allie Arning

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering Publications

One of the biggest challenges for direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) in treating wastewater from flue gas desulfurization (FGD) is the rapid deterioration of membrane performance resulting from precipitate fouling. Chemical pretreatment, such as lime-soda ash softening, has been used to mitigate the issue, however, with significant operating costs. In this study, mechanical vibration of 42.5 Hz was applied to lab-scale DCMD systems to determine its effectiveness of fouling control for simulated FGD water. Liquid entry pressure and mass transfer limit of the fabricated hollow fiber membranes were determined and used as the operational constraints in the fouling experiments so …