While the described membrane distillation technology is showing promise, membrane distillation technology has been the holly grail for over 10 years and a number of similar advancements have been intorduced over this period. My expectiation is that if the claims of the author are confirmed with pilot- and full-scale testing, it will take 5 to 8 years from now until it gets adopted for real-life full-scale applications. The two main challenges with membrane distillation is the need for steam and the productivity and fouling of the membranes. Power plants in highly industrialized countries which lack their own fossil fuil resources do not generate large volumes of waste steam to make memrbane distillation attractive for large-scale desalintion plant applications - these in the Middle East do - so the technology may become more attricative and get full-applicaiton there. While the author mentiones membrane features that address one of the key bottlenecks of exisitng membrane distillation technologies - membrane fouling, the other main bottleneck is its productivity per square meter of membrane area. While RO element productivity has been signficantly enhanced by recent developments in thin-film membrane technologies, the development of commercial membranes for membrane distillation is still in its infancy (and has been for over 10 years now). Only time will tell if the thermal distillation memebrnane technology would advance at fast-enough rate to catch up with the advnaces in RO desalination... Stay tuned.

Published June 21, 2012 18:07 by Nikolay Voutchkov, Water Globe Consulting, LLC - President