화학공학소재연구정보센터
Separation and Purification Technology, Vol.221, 93-100, 2019
A comprehensive investigation of filtration performance in submerged hollow fibre membrane modules with different fibre geometries
In this study, computational fluid dynamics simulation was performed to investigate the effects of fibre internal diameter (ID) and length on the filtration process and flux distribution during a dead-end, hollow fibre filtration. The model was combined with the Navier-Stokes and Darcy Brinkman equations to simulate a complete filtration run. A comprehensive membrane fouling mechanism, including reversible fouling resistance and irreversible fouling resistance, was considered. A moving fluid-solid boundary was adopted to evaluate sludge cake deposit along the fibre. Our results showed that non-uniform flux distribution was intensified with increase of fibre length, while an ID between 0.4 and 0.7 mm was optimal; it also demonstrated that an ID below 0.4 mm lead to drastic non-uniform flux distribution due to unfavourable hydrodynamic conditions in the internal channel. In actual filtration, the initial non-uniform flux distribution rapidly became uniform for a while, but over time the phenomenon of non-uniform flux distribution was re-established.