CFD Modeling of Ultrafiltration Membrane Fouling Reduction Under Ultrasound Field

The membrane filtration process is an innovative and precise method of separation in different industries. One of the problems involved in this process is membrane fouling, which leads to reduction of membrane performance. Ultrasonic waves are one of the effective techniques for reducing membrane fouling. In this work, CFD is employed for modeling of a membrane modul. Prediction of pearmeate flux of membrane which was fouled by clay particles is studied in the absence and presence of ultrasonic waves at frequency of 40 kHz. In this work, the effect of ultrasound power on permeat flux through a 3D multi-phase model has been studied. Comparison between modeling and experimental results shows the good ability of model for prediction of permeate flux.

Keywords:

Membrane filtration , Fouling reduction , Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) , concentration polarization , Ultrasound waves.