In this work, desalination tests were carried out by vacuum membrane distillation, with the aim of investigating the purity (in terms of conductivity) of the produced permeate. Consecutive experiments, with and without cleaning in between, were made on lab-prepared modules equipped with commercial capillary polypropylene membranes. In particular, by working at fixed operating conditions (feed flow rate and composition, temperature and vacuum pressure) the effects of a partial and of a total cleaning procedure on the permeate conductivity were analyzed and compared. Depending on the used approach, pure water or high-purity water can be obtained as permeate. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.