Alaa Kullab

Experimental evaluation of a modified air-gap membrane distillation prototype

Modifications were implemented on a semi-commercial air-gap membrane distillation prototype to assess experimentally any improvement in its performance. The main changes were in the air-gap domain ...

Removal of Toxic Compounds from Water by Membrane Distillation (Case Study on Arsenic)

Contamination of groundwater by arsenic (As) is a global health hazard affecting more than 150 million people over 100 countries around the world. There are several treatment options available for removal of arsenic from water, both on-site and off-site, and the most commonly used technologies are oxidation with filtration, biological oxidation, co-precipitation followed by adsorption onto coagulated flocks, ion exchange, adsorption onto various solid media and membrane technology. These technologies are well established for arsenic removal from aqueous solutions; yet all of them have drawbacks and their by-products can be a further potential source for secondary arsenic pollution. Membrane Distillation is promising technology that can be utilized in arsenic removal from contaminated water to meet the maximum contaminant level of 10 µg/L as set by WHO. However, only very few lab-scale investigations demonstrated the technology’s potential. Lab-scale tests and MD prototypes have been utilized in several arsenic removal tests and studies with different MD configurations and membranes materials. In addition, studies have been conducted on integrated systems with other treatment technologies and integrated systems producing several water and energy services. Test results showed that MD had achieved high removal percentages of more than 99% with stable production rates.