Sharif Digital Repository

Thin film composites (TFCs) as forward osmosis (FO) membranes for seawater desalination application were prepared. For this purpose, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) as a moderately hydrophilic polymer was used to fabricate support membranes via nonsolvent-induced phase inversion. A selective thin polyamide (PA) film was then formed on the top of PAN membranes via interfacial polymerization reaction of m-phenylenediamine and trimesoyl chloride (TMC). The effects of PAN solution concentration, solvent mixture, and coagulation bath temperature on the morphology, water permeability, and FO performance of the membranes and composites were studied. Support membranes based on low PAN concentrations (7 wt... 

In this paper, the performance of a novel HDH solar desalination system equipped with a combination of heat pipe (HP), evacuated tube collector (ETC) and air bubble column humidifier is experimentally investigated. This novel HDH system uses advantages of ETC-HP as a highly efficient thermal absorption and conductor device, and at the same time employs the advantages of an air bubble column humidifier, i.e. high interface area and effective mixing in order to heat the water and humidify the air, respectively. The effects of various parameters including incoming air flow rate into the humidifier, initial depth of water in the humidifier, and adding fluids such as oil and water in the space... 

Solar energy is turning to one of the important types of clean energies, due to its availability, and its potential for wide range of applications. In this work, a new passive solar desalination system is introduced, which benefits from excellences of twin-glass evacuated tube collectors. For the first time, the evacuated tube collector is not only used as the solar thermal collector, but also as a basin to heat the water. Hence, the thermal resistance between the collector and basin is virtually eliminated. Results show a considerable increase in the rate of desalinated water production and the maximum production reaches up to 0.83 kg/(m2·h). It was observed that the maximum rate of the... 

In the present study, the effect of electromagnetic field on the salt and water transport and reduction of carbonate deposit during reverse osmosis desalination was investigated. The electromagnetic field was generated by AC current through a solenoid wound around the membrane separation module. The current intensity and frequency was 25 A and 50 Hz, respectively. Experiments were conducted using CaCO3 solution at the concentration of 5.5 mmol/L. For comparison purposes, desalination by the membrane, in the presence and absence of an electromagnetic field was conducted. While the desalination process temperature was kept constant, the product temperature increased by less than 2 °C when the... 

In this study, a hydrophilic metal-organic framework (MOF) was applied to improve the performance of a cellulosic membrane for forward osmosis (FO) desalination application. The characterization results confirmed that the MOF particles existed within the matrix of the modified membrane. The MOF loading led to adjustment of the membranes in terms of overall porosity, pore inter-connectivity and hydrophilicity. These features caused an improvement in the pure water permeability (72%) and reduce the structural parameter of the modified membrane to 136 μm. The FO water flux of the modified membrane enhanced by about 180% compared to an unmodified membrane, without decreasing its selectivity. FO... 

In recent years carbon nanotubes and other carbon nanostructures such as graphene sheets have attracted a lot of attention due to their unique mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. These structures can be used in desalination of sea water, removal of hazardous substances from water tanks, gases separation, and so on. The nanoporous single layer graphene membranes are very efficient for desalinating water due to their very low thickness. In this method, water-flow thorough the membrane and salt rejection strongly depend on the applied pressure and size of nanopores that are created in graphene membrane. In this study, the mechanism of passing water and salt ions through nanoporous... 

In the present work, effects of height, length, and width of a single-slope basin-type solar still on its distillate production was investigated. For this purpose, a radiation model was developed which accounts for the influences of all walls on quantities of received solar radiation by the base and saline water of the still. Moreover, in this radiation model, the side walls of the still were considered as the trapezoid and the diffuse as well as beam components of solar irradiance were separately taken into account for the first time. Abilities of the present model were compared with earlier ones. Furthermore, the predictions of the current model were compared with the present experimental... 

In common solar stills, a portion of the produced vapor undesirably condenses on the sidewalls and runs down to be mixed with saline water in the basin. This results in lower distillate output of the system. The aim of this study was to improve the condensation process of a solar still without complicating its structure to collect the water condensed on sidewalls. The proposed solar still was made of two containers nested one inside the other such that the smaller container, containing saline water, fitted easily into the larger container. There was a thin gap between the two in which condensed liquid on sidewalls, ran down and was collected from the bottom of the larger container. The... 

In this work, desalination of saline brines using the sweeping gas membrane distillation (SGMD) process is investigated. The Taguchi method was applied for optimization of the operating parameters. An L9 orthogonal array was used to investigate the influence of pertinent variables, including feed temperature (Tf: 45°C, 55°C and 65°C), feed flow rate (Qf: 200, 400 and 600 mL/min), feed concentration (Cf: 10, 25 and 50 g/L) and sweeping gas flow rate (Qc: 4, 10, and 16 SCFH) on the distillate flux. Results of the experiments showed that maximum distillate flux, which was about 10 L/m2 h, obtained at 65°C feed temperature, 16 SCFH sweeping gas flow rate and brackish water with 10 g/L salt... 

This work offers an extensive framework for the techno-economic evaluation of the subsurface and surface components of low-grade geothermal (< 100 °C) desalination systems, that is based on validated hydrogeological, thermodynamic, and economic considerations. Additionally, this work incorporates a recently developed advanced multi-effect distillation (MED) process for an improved utilisation of the geothermal heat sources. The analysis focuses on a pre-feasibility study for Western Australia, the influence of the different cost drivers, especially the often overlooked geothermal well field parameters like permeability, so as to permit rational assessments of potential application sites. For... 

Recently, microalgae has received a high attention for application in bioelectrochemical systems due to its potential to be used for oxygen generation and biodiesel production. In this study performance of algal biocathode in a microbial desalination cell (MDC) was evaluated against air cathode and biocathode microbial fuel cell (MFC). Effluent of a dairy wastewater treatment plant with COD of 1000 mg l-1 was utilized as substrate in the anode and the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris was inoculated in the cathode using a synthetic culture media. Experiments were conducted using two different saline water concentrations including 15 g l-1 (MDC-1) and 35 g l-1 (MDC-2) in a desalination cell and... 

In this study, a novel idea of storing the latent heat of condensing vapor in solar stills by means of phase change materials (PCMs) as a thermal storage is experimentally investigated. During the daytime, the generated water vapor by the solar energy, is conducted to an external condenser filled with PCM to be condensed. The wasted latent heat is absorbed by PCM and thereby stored. It is worth noting that there is no direct contact between the saline water and the PCM, therefore, the solar energy is not directly stored in the PCM. In the evening, the energy stored in the PCM is transferred as heat to the saline water by heat pipes and enables the desalination process to continue. Several... 

According to current researches, graphene oxide (GO) membranes show promising desalination properties due to ease of synthesis, low production cost, and high efficiency. There are several experimental works to study ionic sieving properties of GO membranes. However, it is difficult to characterize atomistic mechanism of water permeation and ion rejection by experimental approaches. On the other hand, there exist a few reports in which the atomistic picture of water permeation across GO membranes is investigated by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. In the present work, in addition to water desalination, the atomic scale mechanism of ion rejection is studied using large scale MD... 

Reverse osmosis (RO) membrane process has become the most promising technology for desalination to produce purified water. Among numerous polymeric materials used to fabricate RO membranes, aromatic polyamide thin film composite (TFC) membranes are dominant in commercial RO membrane processes because of their high salt rejection and water permeability as well as their excellent chemical, thermal, and mechanical stability. However, the major hindrance to the effective application of polyamide TFC RO membranes is membrane fouling. Furthermore, polyamide TFC RO membranes have limited stability to chlorine, which is commonly used as disinfect to control membrane biofouling. These two factors... 

The current study investigates the effect of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) addition on morphology and antifouling properties of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) asymmetric flat ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. The membranes are prepared via phase inversion method induced by immersion precipitation at different PVC/PAN blending ratio up to 40 wt% PAN. Also, membranes with blending ratio of PVC/ PAN:70/30, which showed the highest water flux and flux recovery ratio, were used for membrane preparation with 4 wt% of Polyethylene glycol (PEG) addition in four different molecular weight, 600 Da, 1,000 Da, 6,000 Da and 20,000 Da, which was used as pore former and hydrophilic polymeric additive. The performance... 

Produced water (PW), water extracted along with oil, can cause important environmental challenges due to its high volume and salinity and is considered a key factor in the economic exploitation of oil fields. Therefore, making use of a cost-effective integrated system of wastewater treatment is a fundamental requirement in oil and gas industries. In this paper, the integrated PW treatment system is presented using superstructure-based mathematical optimisation methodology which is aimed at minimising the total annual cost. Two distinct scenarios of injection and reuse in industrial scale are considered to propose an efficient and optimal integrated system. The results show that, despite the... 

A hybrid HDH desalination system integrated with a heat pump was experimentally studied. In this system, heat pump's heating was used to raise the temperature of the air entering the humidifier and its cooling effect was used for dehumidification of humid air and freshwater production. In other words, heat pump's condenser works as the heater of the HDH cycle and its evaporator works as the coolant for the dehumidifier of HDH cycle. The effects of different parameters such as mass flow rate of inlet saline water (relative humidity of the air passing the dehumidification section), volume flow rate of the air passing the dehumidification section and ambient air temperature on freshwater... 

An experimental study was conducted on a solar hybrid system to transform the waste heat of photovoltaic module (PV module) into a useful heat which could be used in a solar desalination (SD) system in order to produce freshwater (scenario 1). Then, different parameters such as the amount of the produced freshwater by condensed vapor on the glass cover and basin side walls were taken into consideration after the fabrication of the SD system. Furthermore, the effect of water depth in the tray and the effect of the presence of a fan inside the basin (scenario 3) on water yield (kg/m2hr) were evaluated. In addition, the effects of using a mirror to lead the reflected light on the PV module and... 

Performance of a small-scale trigeneration system driven by low-temperature geothermal sources for producing fresh water, heating (hot water) and electricity is investigated from thermodynamic and economic standpoints. This system, utilizing a single stage absorption heat transformer leads to an increase in heat source temperature to be used in single stage evaporation desalination process and also providing water heating. Furthermore, an organic Rankine cycle is used for electric power generation. The developed model is validated with available data and effects of decision variables namely geothermal source, absorber and condenser temperatures on energy and exergy efficiencies of the... 

The vacuum systems play crucial role in various industries including, but not limited to, power generation, refrigeration, desalination, and aerospace engineering. There are different types of vacuum systems. Among them, the ejector or vacuum pump is highly utilized due to its low capital cost and easy maintenance. Generally, the better operation of a vacuum system can dramatically affect the performance of its upper-hand systems, e.g., the general efficiency of a thermal power plant cycle. This can be achieved if such vacuum systems are correctly designed, implemented, and operated. The focus of this work is on an existing steam jet-ejector, whose primary flow is a high pressure superheated...