Fabrication of Joule heating coating layers by way of flame spraying for membrane distillation

Membrane distillation (MD) has been introduced as a water desalination process with high potential. Still, its high energy demand has hindered its progress from becoming a widely used procedure. It has been proposed that the addition of photothermal and Joule heating materials to the membrane structure could improve this method’s energy consumption. The attempts that have been reported so far have failed to integrate this feature inexpensively. In this study, Joule heating coating layers were fabricated on steel sheet substrates. The resistive heating capability of the samples was examined in air and water. The MD experiments indicated that only 80 W of power was needed to trigger water distillation at 2.24 kg/m 2 h flux. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis showed that the Joule heating coating layer’s addition did not compromise the quality of the distilled water. The results obtained suggest that MD’s energy consumption could be reduced by integrating Joule heating layers fabricated by way of the widely available flame spraying method.