Publications

Multi-configuration Membrane Distillation Model (MCMD)

Villa, Daniel V.; Morrow, Charles W.; Vanneste, Johan V.; Gustafson, Emily G.; Sertac Akar, NREL S.; Turchi, Craig T.; Cath, Tzahi C.

Many membrane distillation models have been created to simulate the heat and mass exchange process involved but most of the literature only validates models to a couple of cases with minor configuration changes. Tools are needed that allow tradeoffs between many configurations. The multiconfiguration membrane distillation model handles many configurations. This report introduces membrane distillation, provides theory, and presents the work to verify and validate the model against experimental data from Colorado School of Mines and a lower resolution model created at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Though more data analysis and testing are needed, an initial look at the model to experimental comparisons indicates that the model correlates to the data well but that design comparisons are likely to be incorrect across a broad range of configurations. More accurate quantification of heat and mass transfer through computational fluid mechanics is suggested. The model is open source software: https ://github.com/dlvilla/MCMD1