Effect of coagulation pretreatment on membrane distillation process for desalination of recirculating cooling water

The objective of this work was to study the performance of coagulation pretreatment and the effect of coagulation pretreatment on membrane distillation (MD) process for desalination of recirculating cooling water (RCW). In this study, RCW was desalinated by MD process after pretreated by coagulation, precision filtration, acidification and degassing. Pre-coagulation of RCW with poly-aluminum chloride (PACl) coagulant improves the elimination of total organic carbon (TOC), total phosphorus (TP) substances. The optimized pH value and PACl dosage were 7 and 15 mg/L, respectively. Compared with MD process without coagulation pretreatment, much slighter MD flux decrease was observed when coagulation pretreatment was employed for desalination of RCW using MD process. Compared with the membrane flux of MD process for the RCW without coagulation pretreatment, about 23% improvement of MD flux was obtained by employing coagulation pretreatment after 30 days operation. The variation of crystal morphology on membrane surface and hydrophobic character of PVDF hollow membranes were investigated. The results show that distorted rhombic magnesium-calcite scale formed on membrane surface when coagulation pretreatment was employed. However, the deposited magnesium-calcite on the membrane surface was loosely packed with particles of much smaller size when RCW without coagulation pretreatment was fed. It is because that the coagulation pretreatment removed most of the natural organic matter (NOM) and antiscalant additives in RCW, which act as an inhibitor to calcium carbonate crystal growth in water. After coagulation pretreatment, bigger crystal deposit formed on membrane surface with the increase in CF of RCW. It was rather difficult for bigger crystal to enter membrane pores and thus the formation of bigger crystal reduced partial wetting of membrane, which enhanced trans-membrane flux. The hydrophobic character of PVDF hollow membranes used in MD process can be easily recovered by chemical rinsing using acid–base solutions. The results indicate that the pretreatment with chemical coagulant, PACl, is effective for the desalination of RCW by MD process.