Proceedings of the 2016 Internationall Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management.

M Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, March 8-10, 2016

Low Energy and Low Cost Freshwater Producction by

M
Membrane Distillation
Mohammad Jabed P
Perves Bappy, Rubina Bahar* and Tasnim Firdaus Ariff
A
Departmeent of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering
Kulliyyah of Enngineering, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Kuala Lumpur-53100, Malaysia
*Correspponding Author Email:<rbahar@iium.edu.my>

Abstract During the recent dry spell in Malaysia, water rationing was imposed for few months in th he first quarter of the
year 2014. Besides the meteorological ccondition, in some states of Peninsular Malaysia the dem mand and supply for
freshwater has reached in vulnerable coondition already. The water demand management study revealed r applying 3R
principle can be of great help and re-u use of waste water should lead toward sustainable development in the overall
freshwater production. In this study, ecoonomic evaluation of one of the emerging low energy and low cost saline water
treatment method has been discussed. T The process named Membrane Distillation (MD) incorporrates membrane and
distillation based on the partial pressuree difference across a hydrophobic membrane. As an evaporrative process, it does
not require high heat energy input. The ssetup is compact and distilled freshwater produced from thee system is of superior
quality. A comparative energy and cost analysis between MD and the existing water re-use techno ologies is presented in
this paper based on production rates and energy sources. Further improvement of the system has h been suggested to
improve its economic efficiency using avaailable renewable energy resources.

KeywordsMembrane Distillation, Saline water treatment, Water Economy, Wastewater Treatment, Sustainable Process,
Energy.

I. INTRODUCTION

Water everywhere, nor a drop to ddrink. 97% of all available water on earth is highly salty y. In rest 3%, 2% is
frozen and only 1% is drinkable [1]. M More than 30% of the world population dont have access to pure drinking
water. More than 80 countries around th the world is facing serious scarcity of drinking water at th
his very moment. For
last 50 years researchers have been tryying to find a cost effective and quick method to produ uce fresh water from
saline water. But the available system used in market are not affordable enough. On the other hand, h the demand of
freshwater is increasing day by day wiith the increased number of population all over the world d. So to meet up the
demand, new technology and improvvement need to be invented. Recycling and reuse of water w also can be a
preventive measurement for now [2]. But for permanent remedy, a cost effective desalination n system need to be
found. As demands going high, the raate of desalination plant installation is also increasing raapidly. The available
major desalting techniques include Revverse Osmosis (RO), Multistage Flash Distillation (MSF)) and multiple effect
Distillation (MED). RO uses semiperm meable membrane to separate waste particles from waterr under high osmotic
pressure [3], While MED and MSF work on the principle of evaporation/boiling of salin ne water to get the
condensate as the freshwater. MSF usees a portion of water and flash it into steam in stage by stage [4]. MED is a
special type of multistage distillation syystem in which every step reuses the energy from its prev vious step [5]. In the
recent years, Membrane Distillation (M MD) has emerged with promising outcomes as a desalinatiion process. MD is a
purification technology in which a hydrrophobic membrane is used to separate pure water in vap por phase from waste
or saline water driven by the partial preessure difference of the two sides of the membrane [6]. Most
M commonly used
membrane distillation processes are:: Air gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD), Direct Contact Membrane
Distillation (DCMD), Vacuum Membrrane Distillation (VMD) and Sweep Gas Membrane Distiillation (SGMD) [7].
In this study, the energy and cost analyysis of various freshwater production processes have been n discussed based on
the study from some other researches. Based on the study, some improvement also have been suggested to make a
cost effective hybrid system using Mem mbrane Distillation in AGMD mode.

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Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management. Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, March 8-10, 2016

II. COSTS OF ELECTRICITY

The electricity cost is a primary cost is freshwater production which depends on per unit cost of electricity of that
area. In reverse osmosis process electricity price is a major concern. As the RO needs a high pressure pump to run,
so the electricity cost is comparatively higher on RO. If the cost of electricity goes up from $6 K-1Wh-1 to $10 K-
1
Wh-1 then the cost of freshwater production increase almost 12% in RO. On the other hand, AGMD and DCMD
needs low amount of energy comparatively because of the ability to work in low pressure and energy. Figure-1
shows the relation between Freshwater production cost and the cost of electricity [8].

1.2
Fresh Water Cost ($/m3)

0.8

0.6
0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
Cost of Electricity ($/KWh)

Figure-1: Fresh water cost vs cost of Electricity

III. MEMBRANE COSTS

The quality of waste water largely affects the life of membrane. Low salinity brackish water will cause less
rupture of membrane, on the other hand, high salinity seawater causes maximum membrane rupture rate [9]. For
calculating membrane replacement costs, first the total cost of membrane is calculated for one year and then divided
by the total amount of water produced in one year. Normally the replacement rate varies from 9% to 20% per year.

Membrane cost ($/m3) =

Membrane price ($/m3) * Replacement Rate (y-1) * (1000 lm-3/ Membrane flux lm-2h-1 * 8760 hy-1) (1)

IV. CAPITAL AND MAINTENANCE COSTS

Capital cost means the cost to build a new desalination plant whereas O&M costs is the cost to maintain and
routine repair of the plant [10]. Capital cost is one of the key cost of desalination process. Capital and O&M cover
upto 60% cost in a destination plant. The capital cost of the plant can be determined as

$/
Capital cost ($/m3) = (2)
/

where, CRF = The plant capacity recovery factor.

The capital cost of various desalination processes shown in table-1.

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Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management. Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, March 8-10, 2016

TABLE-1: CAPITAL COST OF VARIOUS DESALINATION PROCESSES

Process Plant Capacity (m3/day) Unit-Capital Cost $/(m3/day)
MD 24,000 1,131
MED 37,850 1,860
MSF 37,850 1,598
RO 37,850 1,313

V. TOTAL WATER PRODUCTION COSTS

The total cost of water production can be found by calculating the cost of energy, cost of hardware and equipment
and costs of operation & maintenance.
So the total cost -
Ctotal = CEnergy+ CHardware +CQ&M (3)
Unit water production cost
Cunit = Ctotal /M (4)
Where, M is the daily capacity of the plant.

TABLE-2: ENERGY REQUIREMENT AND WATER PRODUCTION COST COMPARISON AMONG DIFFERENT FRESHWATER
PRODUCTION SYSTEM [6, 11-13]
Type Energy Source Water cost (/m3) Reference
Membrane Distillation Normal available energy 1.17 [11]
Membrane distillation low grade energy source 0.64 [11]
Membrane distillation Industrial waste heat 0.26 [16]
Nanofiltration + reverse osmosis With heat recovery device 0.56 [17]
Nanofiltration + reverse osmosis Without heat recovery device 0.80 [17]
Reverse osmosis + membrane Normal available energy 1.25 [18]
distillation

In table-2, the comparative energy requirement and costs of different freshwater production system has been
shown. The electricity and heat cost is comparatively low for AGMD system as it works under atmospheric pressure
and need no extra high pressure pump to operate. Additionally, MD works under a temperature range of 80C;
hence, the AGMD can use low strength piping and fittings made up of available polymer. So the hardware cost is
also low compare to other systems. The rupture of membrane in AGMD is also low and only need to change the
membrane for its polarization effect [14]. On the other hand, DCMD has higher rate of membrane rupture as the
membrane is kept directly in contact with both feed and cold solution. DCMDs 50% capital cost comes from
membrane cost and 30% capital costs comes from operation and maintenance cost [11]. Reverse osmosis needs
relatively high pressure to operate thus increase hardware and electricity cost [15]. The cost of AGMD can even
decrease if renewable sources can be used such as solar PV cells or wind turbine.
Table-3 is showing effective water cost of various desalination processes using different heat source from
various literatures. From the table it can be seen that MD is more cost effective over RO, RO+NF combo even
RO+MD combo when cheap industrial waste heat or low grade heat energy is used. It also shows that heat recovery
device can recover 30% to 40% heat energy in reverse osmosis and RO+NF combo.

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Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management. Kuala
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TABLE-3: COSTS OF VARIOUS DESALINATION PROCESSES FROM VARIOUS LITERATURE

RO AGMD DCMD VMD
Energy cost Heat, (MJ/m3) 239 231 233 227.8
Electricity, kWh/m3 4.5 0.75 1.5 3.65
Electricity costs, $/m3 0.18 0.03 .07 0.10
Fixed costs Membrane cost ($/m3.d) 750 165 1080 287
Module costs, $/m3.d 35 214 116 39
Hardware costs, $/m3 .32 .05 0.33 0.23
Other costs O&M 0.10 0.05 0.20 0.05
Unit water Costs ($/m3) 0.63 0.31 0.54 0.45

VI. FUTURE PREDICTION AND RECOMMENDATION

The future prediction on the cost development of various types of large scale desalination processes have been
shown by Memstill in figure-2. It is seen that the cost of Air Gap Membrane Distillation using Memstill
Technology will be around 0.21$/m3 whereas the cost of RO will be around 0.4$/m3 [16].. The cost of MED and
MSF will be much higher than that considering large scale operation. The heat recovery system will allow around
50% of heat recovery in both AGMD and RO. The prediction was made considering the seawater desalination
capacity of 105,000 m3/d with different process conditions.

Expected cost Development

2
Water Production Cost ($/m3)

1.5

0.5

0
1990 2000 Year 2010 2020
AGMD RO MSF MED

Figure-2: Expected development costs of water production over years

The economic efficiency of the system can be improved by using renewable energy sources like solar, wind,
geothermal etc. A Hybrid system including two or three different combo of energy sources coupled with Air Gap
Membrane distillation can decrease the energy cost thus increasing the cost effectiveness of the overall system [19].
So the improvement of economic efficiency can be achieved by
1. AGMD with heat recovery (HR)
2. Solar PV with AGMD
3. Wind Turbine with AGMD
4. Geothermal with AGMD
5. Hybrid AGMD-Wind-Solar-Geothermal Combo with HR
Based on this study, a hybrid system can be suggested as the optimum and cost effective system which will
consist a full scale AGMD system with heat recovery coupled with solar, wind and geothermal sources. The three
different sources will be used to cover the demand of energy all day long. If solar energy is not available in certain

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Proceedings of the 2016 Internationall Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management.
M Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, March 8-10, 2016

period of time in a day than other two sources can cover up the demand. Same thing goes for otther two sources and
vice-versa. Figure-3 showing the propoosed optimum model of freshwater production system.

Figure-3: P
Proposed Hybrid low cost Freshwater production system

VII. CONCLUSION

The overall production costs of freshwater is decreasing over the last decades but still a long way to go. From the
above study it has been seen that AGM MD is a very promising technique which has better cost efficiency
e than other
methods for its ambient pressure reqquirement, low operation and maintenance costs and less hardware cost.
Moreover, the efficiency can increasee more by coupling renewable power sources with AG GMD. Enabling heat
recovery also can increase the thermaal efficiency of the system. Thus a hybrid AGMD-Win nd-Solar-Geothermal
Combo with heat recovery system hass been suggested as future recommendation which can be b a better choice of
freshwater production system in terms oof energy and cost effectiveness.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work was jointly supported byy Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS-14-11 18-0359) and IIUM
Endowment fund (EDW B14-134-10199) by providing necessary financial and technical assistancce.

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Lumpur, Malaysia, March 8-10, 2016

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BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Rubina Bahar is an Assistant Professor in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering Department, International Islamic
University Malaysia. She obtained her BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and
Technology (BUET) in 2002. After graduation she worked with ABB in Bangladesh. Later she obtained M.Engg (Mechanical)
from National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2006 and PhD also from NUS in 2011. Throughout her post graduate studies she
was awarded with the research scholarship from NUS. Her main area of research during her stay in NUS was desalination
(conversion of saline water to freshwater) using Vapour Compression Distillation process and Membrane Distillation process.
She joined International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in 2013. She is currently project leader of two ongoing research
project to address the problem of freshwater supply system in the Malaysian households. Her interest also covers thermal
management of machining process and energy harvesting from waste/renewable energy resources.

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