TY - JOUR
T1 - Novel thermal efficiency-based model for determination of thermal conductivity of membrane distillation membranes
AU - Vanneste, Johan
AU - Bush, John A.
AU - Hickenbottom, Kerri L.
AU - Marks, Christopher A.
AU - Jassby, David
AU - Turchi, Craig S.
AU - Cath, Tzahi Y.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-e) Award #0670-3228 and DOE GTO Award # A16-0135 for the financial support of this study. Special thanks to Michael Veres and Tani Cath for their technical support. We are grateful to Amit Sengupta from 3M, Sarah Propp from CLARCOR, Bart Nelemans from Aquastill, and to GE, Pall, and Celgard for providing membranes and a constructive review of this work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2018/2/15
Y1 - 2018/2/15
N2 - Development and selection of membranes for membrane distillation (MD) could be accelerated if all performance-determining characteristics of the membrane could be obtained during MD operation without the need to recur to specialized or cumbersome porosity or thermal conductivity measurement techniques. By redefining the thermal efficiency, the Schofield method could be adapted to describe the flux without prior knowledge of membrane porosity, thickness, or thermal conductivity. A total of 17 commercially available membranes were analyzed in terms of flux and thermal efficiency to assess their suitability for application in MD. The model described the flux with an average %RMSE of 4.5%, which was in the same range as the standard deviation of the measured flux. The redefinition of the thermal efficiency also enabled MD to be used as a novel thermal conductivity measurement device for thin porous hydrophobic films that cannot be measured with the conventional laser flash diffusivity technique.
AB - Development and selection of membranes for membrane distillation (MD) could be accelerated if all performance-determining characteristics of the membrane could be obtained during MD operation without the need to recur to specialized or cumbersome porosity or thermal conductivity measurement techniques. By redefining the thermal efficiency, the Schofield method could be adapted to describe the flux without prior knowledge of membrane porosity, thickness, or thermal conductivity. A total of 17 commercially available membranes were analyzed in terms of flux and thermal efficiency to assess their suitability for application in MD. The model described the flux with an average %RMSE of 4.5%, which was in the same range as the standard deviation of the measured flux. The redefinition of the thermal efficiency also enabled MD to be used as a novel thermal conductivity measurement device for thin porous hydrophobic films that cannot be measured with the conventional laser flash diffusivity technique.
KW - Conductive heat transfer coefficient
KW - Desalination
KW - Low-grade heat
KW - Membrane distillation
KW - Thermal conductivity
KW - Thermal efficiency
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U2 - 10.1016/j.memsci.2017.11.028
DO - 10.1016/j.memsci.2017.11.028
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85034842016
VL - 548
SP - 298
EP - 308
JO - Jornal of Membrane Science
JF - Jornal of Membrane Science
SN - 0376-7388
ER -