Effect of turbulence on hollow fiber membrane filtration in multiphase reactors

• Main Author: Pourbozorg, Masoud
• Other Authors: Law Wing-Keung, Adrian
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Environmental engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70645
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

It is known that the turbulence can significantly influence the membrane fouling performance. At the same time, many underlying mechanisms and operating parameters have not been scrutinized in details. This is mainly due to the complexities in doing so. In particular, the effect of turbulence on the membrane fouling behavior is rarely reported. In the present study, it was found that increasing turbulence kinetic energy and eddy length scale generally reduced the fouling rate. However, the fouling reduction with integral length scale was limited to an optimal value. The statistical analysis indicated that the fouling rate is cross dependent on both factors. The experiments on the impact of jets on the fouling control of hollow fiber membrane filtration showed that the fouling rate was lower with a higher jet velocity due to higher shear rate that led to a higher critical flux.