MORE | Spring 2019

Pore Wetting in Membrane Distillation

Membrane distillation (MD) provides a way to extract water from reverse osmosis (RO) brine with high water recovery and is a potential solution for brine management. However, pore wetting of membranes is a major hurdle that prevents its reliable implementation. The objective of the study is to identify a pre-treatment that can prevent wetting in MD treatment of wastewater RO brine. Three pre-treatments with different separation mechanisms were compared: foam fractionation, advanced oxidation, and ultrafiltration. Based on changes in salt rejection, promising results with respect to reduction of pore wetting in MD were found for foam fractionation pre-treatment.