Produced water treatment: Application of Air Gap Membrane Distillation

Air Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD) has been implemented to treat produced water. The permeate fluxes, rejection factor and energy consumption for three different membranes, TF200, TF450 and TF1000, with pore sizes of 0.2, 0.45 and 1 μm, respectively, are measured at different operating parameters. The influence of membrane pore size is investigated for the produced water. Also, the effect of feed flow rate, coolant temperature and feed temperature on permeate flux is studied. The flux increases as the feed temperature and flow rate increase, and declines as the coolant temperatures increase. Moreover, the energy consumption was measured at different pore size and was found to be independent of membrane pore size.

► Air Gap Membrane Distillation has been implemented to treat produced water.
► Permeate flux is directly proportional to the feed temperature and the feed flowrate.
► Permeate flux is inversely proportional to the coolant temperature.
► Energy consumption was almost equal regardless of the membrane pore size.