Track: Energy

Abstract

During the recent dry spell in Malaysia, water rationing was imposed for few months in the first quarter of the year 2014. Besides the meteorological condition, in some states of Peninsular Malaysia the demand and supply for freshwater has reached in vulnerable condition already. The water demand management study revealed applying 3R principle can be of great help and re-use of waste water should lead toward sustainable development in the overall freshwater production. In this study, economic evaluation of one of the emerging low energy and low cost water treatment method has been discussed. The process named Membrane Distillation (MD) incorporates membrane and distillation based on the partial pressure difference across a hydrophobic membrane. As an evaporative process, it does not require high heat energy input. The setup is compact and distilled freshwater produced from the system is of superior quality. A comparative energy and cost analysis between MD and the existing water re-use technologies is presented in this paper based on production rates and energy sources. Further improvement of the system has been suggested to improve its economic efficiency.