2 research outputs found
Techno-Economic Assessment of Air and Water Gap Membrane Distillation for Seawater Desalination under Di erent Heat Source Scenarios
Membrane distillation (MD) has a great deal of potential and this is currently being explored
by the scientific community. However, this technology has not yet been implemented by industry, and
an estimation of final product costs is key to its commercial success. In this study a techno-economic
assessment of air gap MD (AGMD) and water gap MD (WGMD) for seawater desalination under
di erent capacities and heat source scenarios was developed. The simplified cost of water (SCOW)
method, which estimates investment costs, fixed and variable costs, as well as amortization factors
and price influence over time was applied. In addition, experimental data from a laboratory-scale MD
desalination plant were also used. The results showed water costs in the range of 1.56 to 7.53 Âż/m3 for
WGMD and 2.38 to 9.60 Âż/m3 for AGMD. Specifically, the most feasible scenario was obtained for
WGMD with a capacity of 1000 m3 daily using waste and solar heat. Finally, the costs obtained for
MD were similar to those of conventional desalination technologies at the same scale factor. Therefore,
although large-scale pilot studies and optimization of manufacturing processes are needed, MD
shows very promising results that should be considered further