微細多孔膜を用いた海水淡水化装置の試作

抄録

In recent years, water shortage has been getting worse in the world. To solve the water shortage, research on desalination, which is the process of obtaining fresh water from seawater that accounts for 97.5% of the earth's water, is attracting attention. Various desalination methods, such as reverse osmosis (RO), have now been established. However, the electricity to operate these systems is generated from fossil fuels, which are anxious about being depleted and emit CO₂. In recent years, membrane distillation technology has been attracting attention because of its low environmental loading and the ability to utilize waste energy. In this study, a prototype of a laboratory-scale seawater desalination system was developed, and desalination was attempted. In the analysis of flow pattern inside the device, vertical and horizontal inflow patterns were compared. After the device was fabricated successfully, experiments of distillation from 1 wt% NaCl aqueous solution with membrane has nano scale pores were conducted and freshwater generation was experimentally confirmed.