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Transforming membrane distillation to a membraneless fabric distillation for desalination

Nature Water volume 2, pages 52–61 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Membrane distillation (MD), an emerging thermal desalination technology for more than five decades, has not been widely commercialized largely due to the use of hydrophobic membranes. Here we introduce fabric distillation (FD), a novel membraneless thermal desalination technology, as a transformative alternative to MD. FD shares similar working principles with MD but distinguishes itself by employing hydrophilic fabrics instead of hydrophobic membranes for vapour–water separation. We outline the requirements of a desirable fabric for FD and show that common hydrophilic cotton and linen are applicable. Subsequently, we propose feasible FD configurations with experimental demonstrations. Through rigorous module-scale analysis, we reveal that FD outperforms MD in thermal desalination performance. Additionally, we elucidate the interaction of the membrane or fabric with ubiquitous substances in saline brines and experimentally demonstrate the promise of FD for practical applications. We conclude by highlighting the advantages of FD over MD, casting doubts on the rationale of MD for desalination.

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Fig. 1: Feed evaporation schematic.
Fig. 2: Working principles of FD.
Fig. 3: FD as a viable desalination technology.
Fig. 4: Comparison of desalination performance of MD and FD.
Fig. 5: Impact of practical challenges on MD and FD operation.
Fig. 6: Radar chart depicting a comprehensive comparison of MD and FD.

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Data availability

Source data are provided with the paper. Source data for figures are in Excel format (.xlsx) and also available publicly via https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24511759.

Code availability

The codes for modelling MD and FD in different configurations are available publicly via https://github.com/selinacyml/NATWATER-23-0679.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the financial support from National Key Research Development Program of China (2021YFC3201404).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ecology, Environment and Resources, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Yuanmiaoliang Chen, Shu Yang & Zhangxin Wang

  2. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China

    Yuanmiaoliang Chen & Zhangxin Wang

  3. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Menachem Elimelech

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Contributions

Y.C. performed the modelling of MD and FD and wrote the draft. Z.W. and Y.C. designed the experiment. S.Y. carried out the experiments. Z.W. and M.E. conceived the idea, supervised the research and revised the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhangxin Wang or Menachem Elimelech.

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Nature Water thanks Tiezheng Tong and Xuan Zhang for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–11, Text 1–6 and Tables 1 and 2.

Supplementary Data 1

Data for Supplementary Figs. 3–5.

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Source Data Fig. 1

Data for Figs. 3–5 in the main text.

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Chen, Y., Yang, S., Wang, Z. et al. Transforming membrane distillation to a membraneless fabric distillation for desalination. Nat Water 2, 52–61 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00174-6

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