A critical review on the effect of silanization on the ceramic membrane distillation (CMD): performance, operational factors, and characterization

Abstract This review for the first time aims to investigate the effect of silanization on the ceramic membrane distillation (CMD) as a promising thermally driven separation process. In this regard, the effects of three main factors, namely silane concentration, silane duration, and time as well as the important operating parameters on the process were studied. At the end of this work, future challenges and recommendations in the CMD have also been addressed. The literatures have confirmed that silanization of the CM surface, causes significant changes in the membrane structure in terms of hydrophobicity (water contact angle > 130°), creating different functional groups on the surface and improving the efficiency of the process. The results of previous research woks indicate that the best conditions for the silanization process are possible at silanization time (about 72 h), the number of grafting cycles (1–5 times), and silane concentration (2 or 10 wt%). Concluding the results of various studies shows that the efficiency of the MD for desalination process was high (removal > 98%) under certain conditions (feed input temperature: 70–80 °C and flow rate of 0.3–400 L/h).