Mass transfer inside membranes explained

Author: Bart Nelemans, Joas Wagemakers

Summary: The principle of membrane distillation is easy to explain and to understand, it describes a natural process of evaporation and condensation over a hydrophobic membrane. However the mathematical description of this process used for quantifying mass -and heat transfer can be very useful for the optimization of membrane distillation modules. Another purpose is the use of modelling for prediction of CAPEX and OPEX costs. These costs are mainly determined by flux and energy performance of the process. Aquastill describes in a set of technical papers the different aspects of the MD process to give a deeper understanding in this complex matter. This article describes the second step in a series of sub-processes in heat transfer inside modules which describes the calculation of the mass transfer inside membranes (F).

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