CFD and laboratory analysis of axial cross-flow velocity in porous tube packed with differently structured static turbulence promoters

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used for modelling flow regime in a porous tube. This tube is an ultrafiltration membrane filter made from zirconium-oxide which is very effective in the separation of stable oil-in-water microemulsions, especially when the tube is filled with static mixer. The results of the CFD analysis were used in the preliminary optimisation of the static mixer’s geometry since it has significant effect the energy requirement of this advanced membrane technology. The self-developed static mixers were tested “in vitro” from the aspect of separation quality and process productivity as well to validate CFD results and to develop a cost effective, green method to recover unmanageable oily wastewaters for sustainable development. In this work the results of computational simulation of the fluid velocity and membrane separation experiments are discussed.

Keywords

• cross-flow ultrafiltration
• oil-in-water emulsion
• computational fluid dynamics
• static mixers