Integration of vacuum multi effect membrane distillation with adsorption/cooling system

This paper addresses the integration of vacuum multi effect membrane distillation (VMEMD) with adsorption (AD) unit to produce distilled water for many applications and cooling water to cool the buildings. Integration between VMEMD and AD systems aims to increase the water productivity with low power consumption. In this system, VMEMD is driven by hot seawater to produce fresh water, as the remind brine of VMEMD will discharge into the evaporator of AD cycle to produce other part as a fresh water. AD is a heat driven technology that can be used to generate distilled water and/or cooling water through adsorption/desorption of water vapour using porous metal organic framework (MOF) adsorbent materials. MOF is a new class of porous material with high surface area, superior adsorption characteristics and large porosity. The MOF such as, Aluminium Fumarate (Al-Fum), shows have water vapour adsorption characteristics superior to those of silica gel and zeolite. While, Nickel salts (CPO-27-Ni) was found to be more suitable for applications working at a low evaporation temperature (5 °C) and high temperature (≥90 °C), meanwhile Al-Fum showed a superior performance at a higher evaporation temperature (20 °C) and low regeneration temperature (70 °C). Both systems, VMEMD and AD, have ability to produce more distilled water with recovery ratio about 60%, in addition to produce cooling water.