Temperature and concentration polarizations near the membrane surface zone can significantly affect the performance of membrane distillation, resulting in reduced transmembrane flux and overall efficiency. The fundamental approach to mitigating near-surface polarizations involves enhancing turbulence flow near the membrane surface to minimize the formation of polarization layers. This study focuses on modifying the membrane surface via surface decoration to reduce the polarization layers. The effects of membrane surface decoration on the performance of membrane distillation were systematically investigated through an air gap membrane distillation module under various operating conditions. The hydrodynamic characteristics of the flow near the membrane surface were studied using computational fluid dynamics simulations. The characteristics of both bottom-up and top-down disturbing configurations were analyzed. In addition, we investigated the influence of various flow disturbing methods on the mass transfer coefficient in membrane distillation processes. The membrane distillation test results show that at feed temperatures of 50 °C and 70 °C, there are respective increases in transmembrane flux of 30 % and 12 %. The results provide insights into optimizing the flow state near the membrane surface for enhanced membrane distillation performance. •Mitigating near-surface polarizations through membrane surface decoration•Comparisons between bottom-up and top-down disturbing configurations•Membrane surface decoration yields a negligible increase in pressure drop.