Response to the letter-to-the-editor entitled 'Comments on 'Evaluation of systems coupling vacuum membrane distillation and solar energy for seawater desalination''

摘要

The paper 'Evaluation of systems coupling vacuum membrane distillation and solar energy for seawater desalination' theoretically studied four configurations for coupling solar energy and vacuum membrane distillation (VMD). The aim of this paper was to focus on the VMD process and to study performance that could be reached regarding the permeate flux and the process limitations by concentration and temperature polarisation. The paper thus studied the influence on VMD of different solar systems: feed concentration and temperature were obtained from literature data, as explained in paragraph 2.1. An important point is that the influence of VMD on solar configurations was not taken considered. This aspect must be considered in future works on this subject.