Process design of industrial-scale membrane distillation system for wastewater treatment in nano-electronics fabrication facilities

The main challenge for implementing an industrial-scale membrane distillation (MD) system is its associated thermal power demand and resulting operational cost, which hinders the commercialization of the technology, even after forty years of its evolution and development. Nevertheless, an enormous amount of waste heat releasing from the nano-electronics facilities provides MD an opportunity to showcase its potential for treating industrial wastewater discharging from the facilities. In this work, a waste heat driven MD system for a plant capacity of 15 m(3)/h was analyzed in terms of its thermal power demand and unit wastewater treatment cost. The economic analysis was performed using the factored estimate method. The results show that the thermal power requirement of the industrial-scale MD system was 12.38 MW, and the unit water treatment cost can vary between 3-23 $/m(3), based on plant type (i.e., retrofitted facility or new wastewater treatment facility). • Determination of various industrial waste heat sources in typical nano-electronics fabrication facilities via interviews of related professionals, and designed industrial-scale waste heat integrated MD system for nano-electronics industries; • Mass and energy balances around the industrial-scale MD system for wastewater treatment in nano-electronics industries; • Equipment design for the purpose and performed economic evaluation of the MD system by customizing factored estimate method.