Simulation and experimental study of an AGMD membrane distillation pilot for the desalination of seawater or brackish water with zero liquid discharged

Our work consists in presenting the results of an invention for a membrane distillation system coupled to an efficient and robust water solar collector. This system produces potable water with high quality and a small percentage of brackish discharge independent of salinity of the water source. To optimize and characterize experimentally the installation unit of the air gap membrane distillation (AGMD). During the tests, brackish water was used, ranging from 4.2 to 12.5 g/l of salt. The results show that the permeate flux increases as the temperature and feed rate an increase, and the thickness of the air gap decreases (from 5.12 to 1.5 mm). Our AGMD system was modelled using Matlab programming on heat and mass transfer aspects. The 1D model is based on the transfer equations and correlations of the literature present in the membrane distillation pilot. The maximum permeate flux obtained was 7.4 kg /m² h with the temperature of the hot fluid of 80 °C, a gap of 1.5 mm and water flow rates of 4.8 l/min for the hot chamber and cold. For all measurements, the maximum relative difference between the experimental results and the simulated results is observed at 10% errors. The results of low temperature hot fluids can be interested in the solar energy coupling project.