Mass Transfer Analysis of Diffusion-gap Distillation
P Wang*, B C Yu, S M Xu and L Xu
Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of
Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Dalian University of
Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Abstract. Diffusion-Gap Distillation is a new type of thermal seawater desalination process,
the operation and structure are very simple. A physical model of single-stage Diffusion-Gap
desalination plant was established using MATLAB based on the theory of conservation of
heat and mass. The sensitivity of hot material temperature, cold material temperature and
flow rate were analysed. Computational results have an important influence in the design of
the model and the setting of operating conditions.
1. Introduction
There are many methods for seawater desalination, they can be divided into two categories according
to the principle of brine separation [1]. One is the thermal method, the separation is achieved by
heating or cooling to promote the mass transfer of the vapor phase, including: MED, MSF, VC,
freezing-melting, HDH etc. The other is the membrane method, by using a porous membrane to
block the passage of brine and produce fresh water, including RO and ED. Diffusion-Gap Distillation
(DGD) is a separation method developed from the air-gap membrane distillation, it can be used
widely, such as seawater desalination [2], treatment of high saltwater [3], recycle of waste water [4,
5] and so on. In the low-grade thermal power plant studied by G Han [6] and L Rui [7], membrane
distillation separation takes advantage of temperature difference to produce fresh water and provides
power for the cycle, the MD process can be completely replaced by DGD. The liquid desiccant air
conditioning system (LDAC) studied by Andrew Lowenstein [8, 9] uses the falling film of desiccant
on the plate to absorb the water vapor in the air and the desiccant diluted regenerated by the falling
film evaporation process, It is essentially the same as the DGD separation process. In this paper,
mass and heat transfer simulation of Diffusion-Gap Distillation process was carried out according to
the principle of energy conservation. The influence of feed and coolant temperature and mass flux on
freshwater yield was analyzed.
2. Mathematical model
2.1. Physical model
Figure 1 shows a physical model of a Diffusion-Gap Distillation device. The Diffusion-Gap
Distillation device is mainly composed of two plates, they are close to each other and are placed
parallel. One of the plates is a layer of porous media and constitutes an evaporator. The other has a
Wang, P., Yu, B., Xu, S. and Xu, L.
Mass Transfer Analysis of Diffusion-gap Distillation.
In Proceedings of the International Workshop on Environmental Management, Science and Engineering (IWEMSE 2018), pages 119-124
ISBN: 978-989-758-344-5
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119

flow channel inside it, which is called condenser. During the operation of the device, cold water
flows from the bottom of the condenser and flows upward along the flow channel. After flowing out
from the top of the condenser, the solution is heated by an external heat source. It then flows into the
evaporator porous medium and flows from top to bottom. When the solution flows in the evaporator,
the water vapor in the air layer of the evaporator and the condenser is saturated. Since the
temperature for evaporator is higher than the condenser, the vapor pressure on the evaporator is
greater than on the condenser. Water vapor is driven by this pressure difference to evaporated from
the evaporator and diffused through the air gap to condense on the condenser to produce fresh water.
Figure 1. Physical model of diffusion-gap distillation device.
2.2. Mass transfer simulation
Take an element of length dx at the x position as the study object. Assuming the temperature and
mass flux at the upper inlet of the evaporator and condenser have been known. Due to the
temperature difference, Water vapor diffuse form left to right driven by the temperature-induced
vapor pressure difference. According to Fick's law of diffusion, the amount of diffusion that is the
change in flow rate on the evaporator is [10]:
( ) ( ( ))
ln( )
( ) ( ( ))
f p p
m f f
dm x P P T x
A DP
dx L RYT x P P T x



(1)
Where A is the total area of the evaporator, L is the length of the model, D is the mass diffusivity
between the air and water vapor, R is the universal gas constant, Y is the air gap width, P is the total
pressure, P
p
(T
p
(x)) is the vapor pressure according to the temperature of the Condensate film T
p
(x),
P
f
(T
f
(x)) is the vapor pressure according to the temperature of the evaporator surface T
f
(x). The
partial pressure of water vapor is a function of temperature and solute concentration and can be
calculated by empirical formula. T
m
(x) is the average temperature of the evaporator and the
condenser.
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The temperature of the hot fluid in the evaporator decreases due to water evaporation. According to
the conservation of energy, we can get the equation (2). In the formula, m
f
(x) is the flow rate of hot
material, h
f
(c(x),T
f
(x)) is the specific enthalpy of sodium chloride solution at c(x) concentration and
T
f
(x) temperature, h
vap
(T
f
(x)) is the latent heat of T
f
(x) solution.
[ ( ) ( ( ))] ( ) ( ( ))
p p p p vap p
d m x h T x dm x h T x
(2)
It is the same to the changes in flow rate and temperature on the evaporator, the increase of
condensate flow rate and temperature of the condenser can be calculated by equation (3) and (4).
( ) ( ( ))
ln( )
( ) ( ( ))
p p p
m f f
dm x P P T x
A DP
dx L RYT x P P T x



(3)
[ ( ) ( ( ))] ( ) ( ( ))
p p p p vap p
d m x h T x dm x h T x
(4)
Since the calculation process is to solve each small element from top to bottom, the condition
must be known is the upper temperature of the condenser. The actual situation has been known is the
bottom inlet temperature of the condenser. An upper temperature of the condenser is assumed during
the calculation. The calculated condenser inlet temperature is compared with the actual set
temperature. Calculation is completed until the calculation result is equal to the set value. The cycle
diagram of the entire calculation process is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Calculation algorithm of the of the entire calculation process.
Mass Transfer Analysis of Diffusion-gap Distillation
121

2.3. Model rationality analysis
The model of flow rate 0.01kg/s, hot material temperature 363.15K, cold material temperature
293.15K, concentration 0.62 mol/kg is simulated with different grid number. The result is shown in
Figure 3. When the number of grids is greater than 200, the result curve tends to be flat, the increase
in the number of grids has little effect on the calculation results. So, the simulation is done with a
grid length of 0.002m.
0 200 400 600 800 1000
1934
1936
1938
1940
1942
Q（W）
Number of grids
Q
2.536
2.544
2.552
2.560
2.568
M
M（kg/m
2
h）
Figure 3. The effect of the number of grids on the calculation results.
3. Simulation results and analysis
3.1. Effect of feed temperature
320 330 340 350 360 370
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
Freshwater production（kg/h）
Hot material temperature（K）
0.001kg/s
0.002kg/s
0.003kg/s
0.004kg/s
0.005kg/s
0.006kg/s
0.007kg/s
0.008kg/s
0.009kg/s
0.01kg/s
Figure 4. Effect of hot feed temperature and flow rate on freshwater production.
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As can be seen from Figure 4, when the temperature of the cold material is fixed at 20°C, the output
of freshwater increases as the temperature of the hot material rises. And in the case of relatively large
flow, the diffusion flux increases roughly exponentially. The driving force of the steam diffusion is
the vapor pressure difference between the evaporator and the condenser, and the saturated water
vapour partial pressure is related to temperature. When the inlet temperature of the cold material is
constant, increasing the temperature of the hot material corresponds to an increase in the driving
force for vapour diffusion, so the amount of condensation increases with the increase in the
temperature of the hot material.
280 285 290 295 300 305 310 315
0.00
0.56
1.12
1.68
2.24
2.80
Freshwater production（kg/h）
Cold material temperature（K）
0.001kg/s
0.002kg/s
0.003kg/s
0.004kg/s
0.005kg/s
0.006kg/s
0.007kg/s
0.008kg/s
0.009kg/s
0.01kg/s
Figure 5. Effect of cold feed temperature and flow rate on freshwater production
As can be seen from Figure 5, when the hot material temperature is 85°C, the freshwater yield
decreases as the temperature of the cold material increases. Contrary to the effect of increasing hot
material temperature, when increase the temperature of the cold material, which reduces the
temperature difference between the evaporator and the condenser, reduces the vapour pressure
difference, reduces the diffusion drive force, so decreases the diffusion flux.
3.2. Effect of flow rate
As can be seen from Figure 4 and Figure 5, the production of freshwater increases with the increase
of flow rate (from 0.001 kg/s to 0.01 kg/s). This is because the increase of flow rate is much larger
than the increase of freshwater production, heat transfer between evaporator and condenser is small
compared to the increase in flow rate, the temperature difference between the evaporator and the
condenser increases, so the diffusion flux increases.
4. Conclusions
Diffusion-Gap Distillation is a new type of thermal seawater desalination process. The device has a
large surface area, the operation process does not require a vacuum environment and can realize
energy recycling, it can be used widely, such as seawater desalination, treatment of high saltwater,
recycle of waste water and so on, has a good application prospect. Using the established model to
simulate the process, the results show: increasing the temperature of the hot material can increase the
diffusion flux and improve the efficiency; increasing the cold material temperature will reduce the
Mass Transfer Analysis of Diffusion-gap Distillation
123

diffusion flux and reduce the freshwater yield; as the flow increases, the output of freshwater
increases.
Acknowledgement
We are deeply indebted to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51276029)
for its funding.
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