Low Temperature Distillation Through Hydrophobic Membranes

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Abstract
The use of hydrophobia porous membranes makes it possible to maintain liquid-vapour interfaces localized at a membrane surface. Based on that, thermally driven separation processes were obtained through the membrane and thoroughly analyzed both experimentally and theoretically, Two experimental conditions were used: i) the porous membrane is in direct contact with two liquid aqueous phases on both sides and the vapour phase is trapped inside the pores (capillary distillation); ii) on one side of the porous membrane there is a warm aqueous solution, while an additional gaseous gap is maintained on the opposite side of the porous membrane; the vaporizing component diffuses through the entire gas phase and condenses at a cold surface confining the gaseous gap (cold wall distillation). The mathematical model, describing both the separation rate and the energy flux is presented and compared with the experimental results. The influence of the gas membrane thickness is also discussed.

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