50 years have passed since the publication of the first membrane distillation (MD) paper [M.E. Findley, Ind. & Eng. Chem. Process Des. Dev. 6 (1967) 226-237]. Up to date a tremendous progress has been made in all aspects of MD science and technology towards its industrial implementation including membrane and module engineering, pilot plant design and optimization, simulation and theoretical approaches, use of renewable energy and waste heat sources, etc. Until December 2016, the total number of papers published in JCR international journals, including the journal Desalination, is 1187 (Web of Science). Most of these published papers deal with desalination by MD being the most used MD configuration direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) with 54.9% of the published papers up to December 2016.
The observed growing interest in MD technology is attributed to various reasons, especially those related with the MD advantageous characteristics. For instance, the operating hydrostatic pressures are low (near atmospheric pressure), temperatures are below the boiling point of the feed aqueous solutions to be treated, the achieved non-volatile contaminants rejection factors are high (> 99.9%) and overall the possibility of processing brines and saline solutions up to saturation protecting the environment.
This Virtual Special Issue of Desalination will cover multidisciplinary MD topics including both fundamental and applied MD concepts in desalination e.g. novel membranes and modules, thermal efficiency improvement, pilot plants and advanced systems, optimization, renewable energy and waste heat use in MD desalination, evaluation of MD energy requirements and MD desalination costs, analysis of scaling and/or crystallization fouling of MD membranes, long-term MD desalination tests and lifetime of membranes used in MD desalination, simulation and theoretical modelling in MD desalination.
Submission information
All the papers for this special issue will go through the online submission system and the standard peer review process of the journal of Desalination. Please submit your manuscript to 'VSI:MD.' Guidelines for submission of papers are outlined in the Guide for Authors.
Papers will be accepted for review from 1 November 2017. The closing date for submissions is 30 June 2018
