Membrane Distillation

MEMBRANE DISTILLATION

Water distillation using hydrophobic membranes is a desalination technology driven by a temperature gradient that allows extracting fresh water from hot salt water. The technology consists of water vapour that passes through the membrane, forced by the temperature difference of the water that flows at both sides of the membrane. This technology requires hot seawater of high purity to avoid clogging the membrane, and thus maintain the efficiency of the process.

The biggest limitation in expanding this technology relates to the difficulty of obtaining large volumes of hot seawater of high quality and at low cost.