TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of module design and flow patterns on performance of membrane distillation process
AU - Ali, A.
AU - Aimar, P.
AU - Drioli, E.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the financial support from European Commission under the project “Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Membrane Engineering (Grant number FPA 2011-0014)” to carry out the current research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2015/10/1
Y1 - 2015/10/1
N2 - The present study highlights the effect of different hollow fiber membrane configurations and flow patterns on performance of membrane distillation (MD) process. The modules with helical and wavy conformations have been tested under various hydrodynamic conditions and their performance has been compared with conventional straight fiber modules. The effect of flow patterns has been studied by applying the intermittent and pulsating flows to straight hollow fiber membranes. A flux enhancement of 47% and 52% with respect to the straight fibers has been observed for helical and wavy configurations, respectively, though packing density of such modules is significantly less than their straight counterparts. For intermittent flow, an improvement of ~30% has been recorded. The difference is more prominent at low flow rates and approaches to the straight fiber performance under steady flow at high Reynolds numbers (. Re) for all hollow fiber configurations and flow patterns studied. The intermittent flow and wavy fibers exhibit an energy efficiency enhancement of ~180% and ~90% over their conventional counter parts, respectively. In terms of surface and volume based enhancement factor and packing density, intermittent and pulsating flow exhibited the most optimal performance.
AB - The present study highlights the effect of different hollow fiber membrane configurations and flow patterns on performance of membrane distillation (MD) process. The modules with helical and wavy conformations have been tested under various hydrodynamic conditions and their performance has been compared with conventional straight fiber modules. The effect of flow patterns has been studied by applying the intermittent and pulsating flows to straight hollow fiber membranes. A flux enhancement of 47% and 52% with respect to the straight fibers has been observed for helical and wavy configurations, respectively, though packing density of such modules is significantly less than their straight counterparts. For intermittent flow, an improvement of ~30% has been recorded. The difference is more prominent at low flow rates and approaches to the straight fiber performance under steady flow at high Reynolds numbers (. Re) for all hollow fiber configurations and flow patterns studied. The intermittent flow and wavy fibers exhibit an energy efficiency enhancement of ~180% and ~90% over their conventional counter parts, respectively. In terms of surface and volume based enhancement factor and packing density, intermittent and pulsating flow exhibited the most optimal performance.
KW - Energy efficiency
KW - Enhancement factors
KW - Flow patterns
KW - Hollow fiber configurations
KW - Membrane distillation
KW - Packing density
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929378467&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cej.2015.04.108
DO - 10.1016/j.cej.2015.04.108
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84929378467
SN - 1385-8947
VL - 277
SP - 368
EP - 377
JO - Chemical engineering journal
JF - Chemical engineering journal
ER -