Membrane distillation crystallization (MDC) is a promising hybrid separation technology that can play an important role in desalination, mineral recovery from liquid solution as well as in carbon dioxide fixation. MDC combines membrane distillation and crystallizer into one integrated unit that allows excellent recovery of clean water and high purity salt from highly concentrated salts solution (i.e., brine), which is otherwise detrimental when discharged to the environment. The process intensification addresses the limitation of standalone membrane distillation and a standalone crystallizer (i.e., temperature and concentration polarization, membrane properties) when operated as individual technology. This review discusses the fundamental of MDC focused on how the process intensification addresses those standalone units' limitations. Later, MDC's potential applications in addressing some pressing issues such as water scarcity and climate change are also evaluated. Lastly, current trends in the MDC research are discussed to project the required future developments.

中文翻译：

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膜蒸馏结晶的新进展述评

膜蒸馏结晶 (MDC) 是一种很有前途的混合分离技术，可在海水淡化、从液体溶液中回收矿物以及固定二氧化碳中发挥重要作用。MDC 将膜蒸馏和结晶器结合到一个集成单元中，可以从高浓度盐溶液（即盐水）中出色地回收清洁水和高纯度盐，否则当排放到环境中时是有害的。当作为单独的技术操作时，工艺强化解决了独立膜蒸馏和独立结晶器（即温度和浓差极化、膜特性）的限制。这篇评论讨论了 MDC 的基础，重点关注过程强化如何解决这些独立单元的局限性。之后，还评估了 MDC 在解决水资源短缺和气候变化等紧迫问题方面的潜在应用。最后，讨论了 MDC 研究的当前趋势，以预测所需的未来发展。