Field Demonstration of a Nanophotonics-Enabled Solar Membrane Distillation Reactor for Desalination

• Published in: Industrial & engineering chemistry research 2019-10, Vol.58 (40), p.18829-18835
• Main Authors: Said, Ibrahim A, Wang, Sen, Li, Qilin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0888-5885; 1520-5045
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.9b03246

Nanophotonics-enhanced solar membrane distillation (NESMD) is a highly innovative process that overcomes the intrinsic limitation of membrane distillation (MD) in energy consumption, thermal efficiency, and scalability. It applies a nanophotonic-materials-based photothermal coating on a commercial PTFE membrane surface. The coating serves as a solar-thermal collector, absorbs sunlight, and generates highly localized heat, while the rest of the membrane performs the MD function. In the current work, an original pilot-scale NESMD reactor was designed, developed, built, and tested at 29.7174° N, 95.4018° W to investigate the capability of NESMD reactor to desalinate 40 g/L NaCl solution under different intensities of solar irradiance. The preliminary experimental data showed a 99.8% salt removal with a water flux ranging between 0.12 LMH (where the acronym LMH stands for L/(m2 h)) at 88 W/m2 (cloudy conditions) and 0.77 LMH at 1012 W/m2 with an average water flux of 0.55 LMH without energy recovery. Further investigations and improvements are required to enhance the performance of the reactor, since it is still a new technology.