Electrical equivalent thermal network for direct contact membrane distillation modeling and analysis.pdfVIP

Journal of Process Control 47 (2016) 87–97 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Process Control journal homepage: /locate/jprocont Electrical equivalent thermal network for direct contact membrane distillation modeling and analysis Ayman M. Karam, Taous Meriem Laleg-Kirati ? King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering Division (CEMSE), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia article info Article history: Received 4 March 2015 Received in revised form 27 July 2016 Accepted 5 August 2016 Available online 19 September 2016 Keywords: Dynamical modeling Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) Electrical analog Spatial temperature distribution Water distillation abstract Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging water desalination technology that offers several advantages compared to conventional desalination methods. Although progress has been made to model the physics of the process, there are two common limitations of existing models. Firstly, many of the models are based on the steady-state analysis of the process and secondly, some of the models are based on partial differential equations, which when discretized introduce many states which are not accessible in practice. This paper presents the derivation of a novel dynamic model, based on the analogy between electrical and thermal systems, for direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). An analogous electrical thermal network is constructed and its elements are parameterized such that the response of the network models the DCMD process. The proposed model captures the spatial and temporal responses of the temperature distribution along the ?ow direction and is able to accurately predict the distilled water ?ux output. To demonstrate the adequacy of the proposed model, validation with time varying and steady-state experimental data is presented. ? 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Membrane distillation (MD