Membrane innovations to tackle challenges related to flux, energy efficiency and wetting in membrane distillation: A state-of-the-art review

Membrane distillation (MD) has received increasing attention as an alternative membrane-based separation technology for conventional water treatment technologies due to several promising features such as low-pressure operation and excellent separation performance. However, its commercialization progress has been sluggish resulting from low flux performance, high energy consumption attributed to low energy efficiency, as well as membrane wetting and fouling. To date, different strategies have been established to mitigate these critical issues in order to augment the MD performance. This contribution provides a comprehensive review on the contemporary membrane development to address these three thorny issues. The state-of-the-art membrane innovations such as high-flux membranes, self-heating membranes, and omniphobic membranes are extensively discussed. Lastly, this review is wrapped up with the current research limitations and the future perspectives of these membrane innovations.