Assessing thermoelectric membrane distillation performance: An experimental design approach

Thermoelectric membrane distillation has shown promise as a new membrane distillation technique capable of improving energy consumption metrics. This study features an experimental design approach to investigating the performance of a thermoelectric membrane distillation system. Screening and full factorial designs were implemented in Minitab 16 to determine the optimal process conditions for minimizing the specific energy consumption of the system. The process parameter with the most significant impact on the specific energy consumption of thermoelectric membrane distillation systems was determined and a mathematical model for predicting the specific energy consumption was derived. The study showed that adjusting the feed flowrate, the most influential continuous parameter, from a sub-optimal level to an optimal level, while keeping other process variables at their optimal levels, could lead to a 34% reduction in the system's specific energy consumption. At the optimized process parameters of the thermoelectric membrane distillation system, the minimized specific energy consumption fell about 35% below the threshold value of 1,000 kWh/m³ found among the efficient membrane distillation systems in the literature.•Thermoelectric heat exchanger provides the driving force for the membrane distillation process•Seven process variables are assumed to influence the energy consumption of the distillation process•The variables are screened before being analyzed in a full factorial experimental design.