Numerical simulation and theoretical study on effects of operating parameters in Persian Gulf desalination using vacuum membrane distillation

The Persian Gulf and its coastal areas are considered to be the largest source of crude oil in the world. On the other hand, the waste heat from the refining and petrochemical industries located around the Persian Gulf region can be used based on simple feed conditions for membrane distillation. Therefore, in order to improve the performance of this system in the desalination of Persian Gulf water and increase the flux of output, the mass and heat transfer model is simultaneously introduced into a membrane distillation system and validated with experimental data. The effect of different operating conditions such as feed temperature, vacuum pressure on the permeate side, feed concentration and heat transfer coefficient on the flux permeated have been investigated. Also, the effect of feed temperature on the temperature polarization phenomenon has been studied. The results showed that permeate flux increased with increasing feed temperature and heat transfer coefficient and decreased with increasing vacuum pressure and feed concentration. It was also found that the temperature increase would have an adverse effect on the phenomenon of temperature polarization.