To solve the problem that direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process presents a low distillate flux and membrane fouling

a new form of membrane distillation module has been designed in the paper. Sucrose solution was used as feed solution in the experiments. The effect of various parameters on the performance of DCMD process was investigated. The parameters included the packing density of the module Φ

the membrane aeration amount q

the concentration c and temperature T0 of feed solution. The results indicated that with the increase of the packing density of module Φ and membrane aeration amount q

the DCMD flux increased first

then gradually decreased. Φ and q had optimal value

respectively. The DCMD flux decreased gradually with the increase of c

but increased with the increase of T0. For a constant concentration (30%) feed

when the DCMD process ran 330 min

compared to the process without membrane aeration

membrane aeration made the initial flux Jinitial increased 24.7%

the decay rate of flux ΔJ decreased more than 55.0%

the continuous running time t0 for maintaining high flux lengthened 4 times. The hot feed of DCMD process was aerated by PVDF membrane

on the one hand

to promote the heat and mass transfer of process

thus to intensify the separation performance of process

on the other hand

to control effectively the concentration polarization of process

thus to delay the membrane fouling process. The study was helpful to promote the engineering application of DCMD technique.