膜科学与技术

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In-situ characterizing how sodium chloride can have impacts
on the scaling behavior of calcium sulfate in membrane distillation

Authors： CAO Xinmao, ZENG Yanhui, LIU Jie, LI Weiyi

Units： 1. School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, China; 2. College of Environment and Resources, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541006, China

KeyWords： membrane distillation; scaling of calcium sulfate; sodium chloride; crystal-membrane interactions; optical coherence tomography

ClassificationCode：TQ028； TK2

year,volume(issue):pagination： 2025,45(6):108-115

Abstract：

The scaling of calcium sulfate in membrane distillation (MD) can not only substantially decrease the evaporation efficiency, but also induce the wetting of hydrophobic pores, even result in irreversible damage of the polymeric network. The effects of sodium chloride, as a background electrolyte (i.e., an inorganic salt having a considerably higher solubility), on the scaling behavior of calcium sulfate are usually ignored in prior studies. In addition to conventional characterizations, this study employed optical coherence tomography (OCT) to in-situ characterize and compared how the scaling of calcium sulfate could have impacts on the MD performance in the absence and presence of sodium chloride. It was revealed by these different characterizations that, despite the delayed nucleation and crystal growth, significantly stronger crystal-membrane interactions could be caused by sodium chloride (owing to the change in crystalline morphology). This study will shed light on developing effective strategies to mitigate the effects of scaling on MD processes.

Funds：

国家自然科学基金项目（21878140）

AuthorIntro：

曹鑫茂（2005-），男，江西上饶人，研究方向为膜分离技术；曾艳辉（2002-），男，湖南衡阳人，硕士研究生，研究方向为膜分离技术.

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