Abstract:Membrane distillation technology has become an important branch of membrane separation technologies because of its high rejection rate and mild operating conditions. It has been successfully applied in the fields of seawater and brackish water desalination, industrial wastewater treatment and food processing. Due to high packing density and self-supporting structure, hollow fiber membranes greatly reduce mass transfer resistance and thus achieve high water flux and excellent selectivity in membrane distillation process. In recent years, with the increasing expansion and development of hollow fiber membrane preparation technology for membrane distillation, the factors in membrane distillation process that restrict its industrial development, such as the design and optimization of hollow fiber membrane modules, membrane scaling and membrane fouling, have also been gradually taken into account. In this paper, the research progress of hollow fiber membrane distillation process was reviewed from four aspects: optimization of hollow fiber membrane modules, membrane fouling, combination process and membrane distillation application. Finally, the contents and application prospects of membrane distillation were prospected.