CFD simulation on membrane distillation of NaCl solution

Abstract

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation that coupled an established heat and mass transfer model was carried out for the air-gap membrane distillation (AGMD) of NaCl solution to predict mass and heat behaviors of the process. The effects of temperature and flowrate on fluxes were first simulated and compared with available experimental data to verify the approach. The profiles of temperature, temperature polarization factor, and mass flux adjacent to the tubular carbon membrane surface were then examined under different feed Reynolds number in the computational domain. Results show that the temperature polarization phenomena can be reduced, and mass flux can be enhanced with increase in the feed Reynolds number.

Keywords

membrane distillation / computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation / temperature polarization / carbon membrane

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Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg