Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek Tno

Stichting Wageningen Research

Jolanda Van Medevoort

Leonardus Antonius Maria Brouwers

Jan Hendrik Hanemaaijer

Albert Edward Jansen

Jan Breen

Hans De Jong

Eric Van Sonsbeek

Engelbert Peter Jurrie Jan Koele

Jan Willem Assink

The invention is directed to methods for preparing a planar membrane module, a planar membrane module obtainable by said methods, methods for preparing a heat exchanging module, and a heat exchanging module obtainable by said methods. In one aspect the method of the invention comprises:&#x2014;providing a solid state planar membrane;&#x2014;injection molding a potting material into one or more potting frames for supporting said membrane;&#x2014;assembling, preferably by hot pressing, the one or more potting frames with the solid state planar membrane, thereby forming a membrane frame;&#x2014;optionally providing a spacer at least at one side of the planar membrane; and&#x2014;joining a stack of said membrane frames in a gastight manner to form a planar membrane module, said joining comprising welding of potting material.

Planar membrane module preparation

The invention provides a method for the purification of a liquid by membrane distillation comprising: passing a heated vapourising stream of a liquid (retentate stream) through a retentate channel along a porous hydrophobic membrane (), whereby vapour of the liquid flows via the pores of the membrane to the other side of said membrane, and condensing said vapour on the other side of said membrane to give a distillate stream in a distillate channel () which distillate is created by passing the heat of condensation (latent heat) towards a condenser surface (), said condenser surface forming a non-porous separation between a feed stream of the liquid to be purified and said distillate stream, which feed stream is passed through a feed channel () in counter-current with the retentate stream, in which feed channel a space material () is arranged whereby at least part of the latent heat is transferred via the condenser surface to the feed stream, and whereby a positive liquid pressure difference is applied between the retentate stream and the feed stream at the corresponding points of the retentate channel and the feed channel over at least a part of each of the retentate channel () and feed channel. The invention further provides an apparatus suitable for use in said method.

Membrane distillation method for the purification of a liquid

Growing community of inventors

Ede, Netherlands

Jolanda Van Medevoort