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Membrane distillation (MD) is a thermal separation process which possesses a hydrophobic, microporous
membrane as vapor space. A high potential application for MD is the concentration of hypersaline brines, such as
e.g. reverse osmosis retentate or other saline effluents to be concentrated to a near saturation level with a Zero
Liquid Discharge process chain. In order to further commercialize MD for these target applications, adapted MD
module designs are required along with strategies for the mitigation of membrane wetting phenomena. This
work presents the experimental results of pilot operation with an adapted Air Gap Membrane Distillation
(AGMD) module for hypersaline brine concentration within a range of 0–240 g NaCl /kg solution. Key performance
indicators such as flux, GOR and thermal efficiency are analyzed. A new strategy for wetting mitigation
by active draining of the air gap channel by low pressure air blowing is tested and analyzed. Only small reductions
in flux and GOR of 1.2% and 4.1% respectively, are caused by air sparging into the air gap channel.
Wetting phenomena are significantly reduced by avoiding stagnant distillate in the air gap making the air blower
a seemingly worth- while additional system component.