Development of a Membrane Distillation module for solar energy seawater desalination

► A lab-scale Membrane Distillation unit has been set-up and tested. ► Effect of different air gap configurations was examined. ► Unit performances were assessed for prototype scale-up. ► A simplified predictive model was implemented and validated against experiments. ► Model predictions were used for the design of a scaled-up multi-stage unit for further integration in a solar powered MD system.