FLUID FLOW AND TRANSPORT PHENOMENA

Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, 19(1) 18ü25 (2011)

Experimental and CFD Study on the Role of Fluid Flow Pattern on

Membrane Permeate Flux

A. Parvareh1, M. Rahimi1,*, S. S. Madaeni1 and A. A. Alsairafi2

1
CFD Research Center, Chemical Engineering Department, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran
2
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait University, Kuwait

Abstract This paper reports a study on the role of fluid flow pattern and dynamic pressure on the permeate flux
through a micro filtration membrane in laboratory scale. For this purpose, a dead-end membrane cell equipped with
a marine type impeller was used. The impeller was set to rotate in the clockwise and counter clockwise directions
with the same angular velocities in order to illustrate the effect of rotation direction on permeate flux. Consequently,
permeate fluxes were measured at various impeller rotational speeds. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) pre-
dicted dynamic pressure was related to the fluxes obtained in the experiments. Using the CFD modeling, it is
proven that the change in dynamic pressure upon the membrane surface has direct effect on the permeate flux.
Keywords membrane, microfiltration, computational fluid dynamics, modeling, permeate flux

1 INTRODUCTION due to the higher wall shear stress produced by central

The design and optimization of the operating
conditions of membrane modules requires rigorous
knowledge about the hydrodynamic characteristics
inside the channels. In membrane separation processes,
the hydrodynamics of fluid affects the membrane flux,
especially the pressure distribution in the pressure-
driven processes. Numerical simulation for processes
involved with membrane separation has recently re-
ceived a lot of attention due to the advantage over ex-
pensive experiments [1, 2]. In addition, the optimum
operational condition may be obtained by simulation.
Nowadays, computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
is one of the most useful theoretical tools to investi-
gate and predict the performance of processes in-
volved with momentum, heat and mass transfer. CFD
is useful to improve our knowledge about increasing
the separation efficiency without recourse to further
rigorous and costly experimental work, especially in
complex-geometries modules [3].
CFD has been applied successfully in the mem-
brane technology for the separation process optimiza-
tion. In a number of studies, CFD was used to predict
the flow field. Belfort [4] reviewed the development of
understanding of the fluid dynamics in membrane
systems up to 1989. Most of such research was fo-
cused on the flow pattern in a simple separation cell to
complicated cells such as fuel cells.
Fimbres-Weihs and Wiley [5] reviewed the study
for 3D CFD modeling of flow and mass transfer in
narrow spacer-filled channels in membrane modules
in laminar steady and unsteady as well as turbulent
flow regimes, in which the difficulties and restrictions
of such simulation are accounted. Liu et al. [6] studied
the turbulent flow in central and wall baffle-filled
membrane tubes by using CFD technique and found
that the filtration flux in the central baffle was higher
baffle. Agashichev [7] developed a model for quantita-
tive correlation between the longitudinal mass flow
and the degree of the concentration polarization,
which may be used to analyze the influence of mass
flow and bulk flow concentration on the degree of the
concentration polarization. Wiley and Fletcher [8] de-
scribed the application of a CFD model on pressure-
driven membrane processes involving selective removal
of components in the feed channel and their transfer to
the permeate channel. The effects of changes in rejec-
tion, wall permeation rates and solution properties on
velocity and concentration profiles were presented for
empty channels and channels with eddy promoters.
They also developed a generic purpose CFD model for
concentration polarization and fluid flow in pressure
driven membrane separation processes [9]. The results
were validated by classical solutions available in the
literature and revealed that over simplified expressions
for the dependence of viscosity and diffusivity on
concentration, which produce velocity and concentra-
tion profiles, may lead to misrepresenting the reality.
Damak et al. [10] performed a CFD modeling of a
laminar, incompressible and isothermal flow in a cy-
lindrical tube. They assumed the flow to be axisym-
metric and used Darcy’s law to explain the mass
transfer in the tube and in the porous wall. Their re-
sults offered a theoretical structure for the under-
standing of the phenomenon responsible for flux de-
cline. Ahmad et al. carried out a CFD study on the
mass transfer and hydrodynamics in a membrane [11].
They studied the concentration polarization profile,
mass transfer coefficient and wall shear stress in a
membrane channel.
Rahimi et al. [12] presented a CFD modeling in
order to predict the total permeate flux by integrating
the local permeate fluxes over the whole membrane
surface. The permeate fluxes from different input-output

Received 2009-08-12, accepted 2010-11-07.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: masoudrahimi@yahoo.com
 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2011
pressures as well as various cell setups, including a
cell equipped with three types of barrier and the same
cell without any barrier, were predicted. They com-
pared the CFD prediction results with a simple calcu-
lation based on the well-known Darcy equation.
Ghidossi et al. [13] reviewed the studies on using
CFD to model membrane separations and showed that
CFD can provide interesting and important informa-
tion for the development of membrane processes.
Ranade and Kumar presented a detailed fluid hydro-
dynamics of spacer-filled channels using the “unit
cell” approach [14]. The CFD modeling was used to
evaluate the performance of certain spacer shapes and
compare the results in flat and curved channels. Torras
et al. [15] simulated a rotating disk flat membrane
module operated at high rotation speeds in the turbu-
lent regime using CFD technique and concluded that
the discrepancy for the membrane shear stress is proba-
bly due to an incorrect choice of Reynolds number for
deducing the approximate solution. In another study,
Alexiadis et al. [16] performed experimental and nu-
merical analyses for a reverse osmosis (RO) module
and compared the results in order to validate the
model from a practical perspective. They showed that
as 'P increased, the error between the CFD calcula-
tions and experimental results increased. In a more
recent study, Pak et al. [17] simulated a laminar fluid
flow in a 2D porous tube as a cross flow micro filtra-
tion tubular membrane using CFD technique and de-
veloped a numerical finite volume code, using SIM-
PLE algorithm, for the solution of flow and concen-
tration fields.
In the present study, the effects of fluid flow pat-
tern on the permeate flux through a microfiltration
membrane are investigated. Two flow pattern regimes
are produced using a marine type impeller placed in-
side a dead-end cell. The main idea in this study is to
illustrate in what extent the flow pattern upon the
membrane surface is important. The flow pattern is
related to dynamic pressure, which is a part of total
pressure upon the membrane surface. The dynamic
pressure distribution is to be obtained by CFD model-
ing. A scientific illustration of the importance of dy-
namic pressure beside the static pressure can be con-
(a) Flow domain with overlapping region
Figure 1 Different subdivisions of flow zones in a mixing tank [20]
19
sidered as the novel point of this work.
2 THEORY
Microfiltration is one of the most general mem-
brane separation processes. In general, two types of
fluid movement regimes are reported, dead-end and
cross flow. The driving force in the microfiltration is
the pressure gradient across the membrane. The Darcy
equation is the most general equation used in literature
for determination of permeate flux, which is defined as
1 dV 'P
J (1)
A dt P ( RM  Rc )
in which 'P is the transmembrane pressure, μ is the
viscosity, RM is the membrane resistance, and Rc is the
cake resistance.
In the present study the fluid movement upon the
membrane surface is produced by a marine type im-
peller, the impeller should be modeled similar to that
in mixing tanks, which is the most important part for
modeling a mixing tank. The three popular approaches
for modeling an impeller are: impeller boundary con-
dition, inner-outer iterative procedure and sliding-grid
method. In the impeller boundary condition method,
which is the most traditional approach, steady condi-
tions are imposed and simulations are conducted in
the reference frame. This method needs empirically
derived boundary conditions, so the simulation results
are strongly dependent on the predefined boundary
conditions. The inner-outer method takes the approach
just one step further. In this approach, the whole vessel
volume is subdivided into two partly overlapping re-
gions, as shown in Fig. 1 (a), an “inner” domain con-
taining the impeller and an “outer” one containing the
rest of the tank. A crucial feature of this approach is
the overlap region, common to the “inner” and “outer”
domains, which provides the iterative matching of the
two solutions. The extent of this region and the exact
location of its boundaries are largely arbitrary. By con-
trast, in the multiple frames of reference (MFR) method
[18], the “inner” and “outer” steady-state solutions are
implicitly matched along a single boundary surface
(b) Flow domain with common boundary
20 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2011

and external iteration is then not required. In the sliding- w ( UH ) w w § Q eff wH ·

grid or sliding-mesh method, the flow domain is di-   U uiH  ¨ U V wx ¸  SH (8)
vided into two cylindrical, non-overlapping sub-domains, wt wxi wxi © H i ¹
each girded as a separate block. The outer one is fixed,
Peff k2
while the inner one rotates with the impeller. Fig. 1 (b) Q eff where Peff P  Pt , Pt U CP
shows the flow domain configuration typically used in U H
this method and MFR method as well. Brucato et al. (9)
[19] presented predictions with the three methods for
in which
baffled tanks stirred by single and dual Rushton tur-
bines and also by a constant pitched helical impeller. § wui wu j · wui
The CFD modeling involves the numerical solu- Pk Qt ¨  ¸¸ (10)
¨ wx j wxi
tion of conservation equations. In this work, the Navier- © ¹ wx j
Stokes equations are applied to all of the control vol-
§ H H H ·
umes and the RNG k-İ based equations [21, 22] are SH U ¨ C1 Pk  D H  C2 H ¸ (11)
used to describe the physics associated with the tur- © k k k ¹
bulence flow such as velocity field, pressure, turbulent 1  K / K0 k
kinetic energy and turbulent dissipation rate. The D CPK 3 , K E , E2 2 Eij Eij and
Navier-Stokes equations for an incompressible flow 1  EK 3
H
with constant fluid properties in the Cartesian coordi-
nate are as follows [23]: § wu wu j ·
0.5 ¨ i 
Eij (12)
¨ wx j wxi ¸¸
wui © ¹
0 (2)
wxi The following coefficients are used in the modeling as
the RNG turbulence model parameters [22], C1 1.42 ,
wui wP w ª § wui wu j · º C2 1.68 , CP 0.0845 , V H Vk 0.719 , K0 4.8 ,
U ui   «P ¨  ¸¸  U uicu cj » (3)
wxi wxi wxi «¬ ¨© wxi wx j ¹ ¼» E 0.012 .
in which ui, P, ȡ and ȝ are mean velocity, pressure,
density and dynamic viscosity respectively. uic and u cj 3 EXPERIMENTAL

are fluctuation components, and  U uicu cj is the aver-
aged Reynolds stress.
As the layout studied is an open surface case, the
system is involved with the contact of water and air.
Therefore, in Eq. (3), the density (ȡ) and viscosity (ȝ)
of the fluid depend on the volume fractions of each
phase and are calculated by the following equations
U DUair  (1  D ) U water (4)
DUair Pair  (1  D ) U water P water
P (5)
DUair  (1  D ) U water
where D is the air volume fraction in the cell. The in-
terface between two phases is tracked by the volume
fraction. Conservation of D can be represented by the
interface mass balance,
wD
 U ˜ ’D 0 (6)
wt
The cell phase is gas when D 1 , while D 0 means
that the whole volume is occupied by the liquid. It can
be concluded that the gas-liquid interface exists in the
regions that D lies between zero and one.
In addition to the above equations, the equations
of the RNG k-İ model are as follows [21, 22]
w( U k ) w w § Q eff wk ·
In order to investigate the effect of the fluid flow
on the membrane permeate flux, a dead-end cell
equipped with a mixer was used. In practice, the shear
on the membrane surface is usually induced by a
spacer or rotating disk. In the present work, the shear
induced by an impeller is merely to illustrate the effect
of fluid flow pattern on the membrane permeates flux.
Fig. 2 shows a schematic of the experimental cell and
the place of the membrane and the impeller. The cell
consists of a glass cylinder with a height of 15 cm and
a diameter of 6.6 cm. The cell is fixed inside a frame
with a hole at the top and another at the cell bottom
for collecting permeate. The impeller is located at a
clearance of 9 cm from the cell bottom where a 5 cm
circular membrane sheet is placed.
The microfiltration membrane used in the current
experiment was a hydrophilic Millipore PVDF (poly
vinylidene fluoride) with the commercial name of
GVWP. This membrane has a thickness of 120 μm
and a porosity of 60%. The average pore size of the
membrane is 0.022 μm.
In order to eliminate the blocking effect due to
the formation of the cake on the membrane surface,
the cell was filled with deionized water up to 15 cm.
Physical properties of deionized water are considered
as those of water. Since the membrane resistance de-
pends on operating pressure, its value was measured
under the experimental condition. From the mass of
  U ui k  ¨ U V wx ¸  U  Pk  H  (7) permeate obtained at different pressures in the range
wt wxi wxi © k i ¹ of experiments, the membrane resistance was obtained.
 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2011
Figure 2 The cell and its accessories
Figure 3 Determination of membrane resistance
The effects on the permeate flux were examined by
varying the transmembrane pressure as shown in Fig. 3.
The permeate flux linearly increases with the increase
of transmembrane pressure. For this calculation the
Darcy equation was used and the cake resistance, Rc,
was set at zero, as the working fluid was deionized water.
The value of 2.5u1010 m1 was obtained for RM.
The main aim of the present study is to illustrate
how the fluid flow pattern affects the permeate flux.
Some experiments were carried out for this purpose
and each one was repeated three times with a maxi-
mum observed difference of 5% between the meas-
ured fluxes. The average values of the permeate flux
measured during 5 min were used for this analysis. In
the first two experiments, the impeller was rotated
with the same power and in the fourth one the impeller
was stopped. In a marine type impeller, the blades are
fixed on a shaft with an angle of 120q relative to each
other. When the impeller rotates in different direction
it is expected that different fluid flow patterns and
velocities are established inside the cell.
In the first step, the impeller rotation speed was
21
140 r·min1 for both clockwise and counter clockwise
directions and the permeate mass from the membrane
was measured. Fig. 4 shows the permeate mass of de-
ionized water for different states of impeller: clock-
wise rotation, counter clockwise rotation and station-
ary. The increase of the permeate flux is negligible
when the impeller rotates in counter clockwise direc-
tion, while the collected water with clockwise rotation
is three times of that obtained in other layout.
Figure 4 The mass of permeate at various time for differ-
ent rotation directions at 140 r·min1 (Re 5830)
Ʒclockwise motion;ƹcounter clockwise motion;Ƶno motion
In the second step, the experiments were per-
formed at several angular velocities, 55, 70, 110, 120
and 130 r·min1, in order to investigate the effect of
rotation speed on the flux through the membrane. The
mass of permeate collected was measured at different
time up to 60 s. In order to have more understandable
data, the results are compared based on the Reynolds
number in an agitated tank, defined as [24]
U Nd 2
Re (13)
P
where d is impeller diameter, N is rotational speed
(r·s1), ȡ and ȝ are density and dynamic viscosity of
working fluid respectively. The Reynolds numbers
related to the angular velocities from 55 to 140
r·min1 are from 2290 to 5830, so that the flow in the
cell is turbulent [24].
Figure 5 represents the permeate mass at various
time for different Reynolds numbers with clockwise
rotation of impeller. The mass of permeate collected
increases almost linearly for all cases, indicating at
Figure 5 The permeate at various time and different
Reynolds numbers
Re:ƹ5830;ͩ5410;Ʒ5000;Ƶ4580;ƽ2910; × 2290
22 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2011
each Reynolds number, the permeate flux rate is con-
stant. The figure also shows that as the rotation speed
of impeller increases, the slope of the curve increases.
In addition, the difference between the permeate fluxes
at higher Reynolds numbers is more considerable. It
should be noted that when the Reynolds number in-
creases from 5410 to 5830 (less than 8% increase), the
permeate flux increases by more than 25%.
The variation of mass flux at various Reynolds
numbers is shown in Fig. 6. As the Reynolds number
increases, the permeate flux increases. This increase is
more significant for higher Reynolds numbers.
Figure 6 The permeate flux at various Reynolds numbers
4 CFD MODELING
The commercial CFD package, FLUENTTM ver-
sion 6.2, a finite volume Navier-Stokes solver, was
used to model the cell containing an impeller in three
dimensions. The fluid region was discretized into a
finite set of control volumes, using the mesh generator
GAMBITTM of FLUENT. The code is able to employ
the MFR model for the impeller modeling.
Based on the definition of Reynolds number, the
fluid flow regime in the cell is turbulent. The standard
k-İ turbulence model is not appropriate for the strong
turbulent flow with unisotropic flow behavior. There-
fore, the renormalization group (RNG) k-İ model of
Yakhot and Orszag [22] was employed in this study.
Using RNG methodology for the governing equations,
the RNG-formulated k-İ model will be produced, in
which the model constants are reevaluated. The dif-
ference between the RNG and the standard k-İ turbu-
lence models appears in the epsilon equation while the
kinetic energy equations are identical.
The whole volume was divided into 686124 un-
structured tetrahedral meshes. This number of control
volume was found by examining different grid num-
bers between 234320 to 1085234. As no significant
difference was found between the predicted results
using more than 686124 cells, this number of control
volume was used in the modeling to save computer CPU
time. The regions close to the impeller were meshed
into smaller control volumes in order to increase the
precision of predictions. In addition, the region close
to the membrane surface was meshed to fine struc-
tured hexagonal cells with a size ratio of 0.2 relative
to mesh size of the rest of domain. Fig. 7 shows the
meshed cell walls, membrane surface and the impeller.
Figure 7 The meshed cell and impeller
4.1 Boundary conditions
The atmospheric pressure was set as the inlet
pressure boundary condition for the top of the cell. The
modeling was carried out for different angular veloci-
ties of the impeller including 140 (for both clockwise and
counter clockwise directions), 130, 120, 110, 70 and
55 r·min1 (for clockwise direction only). The mem-
brane surface was assumed as no slip wall condition.
4.2 Solution procedure
The SIMPLE pressure-velocity algorithm, the
standard pressure, the second order upwind discretiza-
tion scheme for momentum, turbulent kinetic energy
and dissipation energy were employed in the modeling.
The applied convergence criterion was selected to be
107.
Volume of Fluid (VOF) model was used to model
the fluid free surface inside the cell. In this method,
the interface between two phases, water and air, re-
mains fixed [25]. The numerical stability can be ob-
tained easily in this model because the flow field cal-
culations are not coupled with the identification of the
free surface location. However, the viscous stresses
and surface tension cannot be simulated accurately
because the interface within each cell is not located
precisely. This limitation is largely overcome by using
very fine meshes close to the surface.
5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the present research, the role of fluid flow hy-
drodynamics on the permeate flux, which has a direct
effect on the dynamic pressure distribution, was ana-
lyzed by the CFD. The dynamic and static pressures
are related to the downward velocity (Uv2/2) of the
liquid toward a surface and the head of the liquid
above the surface (Ugh), respectively. The difference
in the permeate flux from the microfiltration mem-
brane is explained by the predicted fluid hydrody-
namics upon the membrane surface. As a first step, the
 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2011 23

(a) Clockwise motion (b) Counter clockwise motion

Figure 8 Fluid flow patterns in a vertical slice for two rotation directions

(a) Clockwise motion (b) Counter clockwise motion

Figure 9 A comparison between the predicted downward axial velocities for two rotation directions

flow fields in the vertical slice through the middle of
the impeller shaft are shown in Fig. 8, which reveals
significant differences between the flows generated by
the marine impeller in clockwise and counter clock-
wise rotation. When the impeller rotates in clockwise
direction (a), the impeller pushes the water toward the
bottom of the cell and after the fluid hits the mem-
brane surface, it moves upward along the cell wall. In
this layout the water is pushed on the membrane sur-
face, increasing the dynamic pressure in downward
direction upon the membrane surface. When the ma-
rine impeller rotates in the counter clockwise direction
(b), the flow pattern consists of a loop in each side of
the impeller. Thus the impeller pushes the fluid
downward along the cell wall and after it hits the bot-
tom most of the fluid goes up and returns to the im-
peller. This flow pattern does not have a significant
positive effect on pushing the water toward the mem-
brane surface. Therefore, it can not be expected that
this layout is effective for increasing the permeate.
Figure 9 shows a 3D view of the region with the
axial downward velocity in the range of 0 to 0.13 m·s1.
24 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2011
In the clockwise setup, the downward flow starts from
the impeller and goes toward the membrane surface at
the bottom of the cell. For the counter clockwise mo-
tion of the impeller, the fluid moves downward only in
a small region around the impeller. Therefore, in the
clockwise setup, the downward stream causes a higher
dynamic pressure upon the membrane surface. This is
the main reason why more water passes through the
membrane in clockwise layout.
In the second step, the effect of rotation speed on
the fluid flow with clockwise impeller rotation is dis-
cussed. Fig. 10 shows the average values of predicted
dynamic pressure at different downward distances
from the impeller at various values of Reynolds num-
ber. The pressure increases slightly with increasing
distance between the impeller and the cell bottom. In
addition, as the Reynolds number increases, the differ-
ence between the predicted pressures is larger, espe-
cially as the Reynolds number increases from 5410 to
5830 r·min1. This pressure increases from about 96 to
125 Pa, which means that an 8% increase in the rota-
tion speed causes about 23% increase of this pressure.
The trend of pressure change is similar to the curve in
Fig. 5 from the experiments, which shows that more
permeate is collected at higher Reynolds numbers.
Figure 10 Dynamic pressures on the horizontal slices at
different distances from the impeller with clockwise rotation
Re:ƹ5830;Ƶ5410;Ʒ5000; × 4580; 2910;ƽ2290
Figure 11 illustrates the average dynamic pres-
sure on the horizontal plane close to the membrane at
different Reynolds numbers. As the Reynolds number
increases, the predicted dynamic pressure on a plane
close to the membrane surface increases. The larger
slope of the curve at higher Reynolds numbers indi-
Figure 11 Dynamic pressure on the horizontal close to
the membrane at various Reynolds numbers for clockwise
motion
cates that at higher speeds the effect of rotation speed
and consequently the effect of Reynolds number are
highly considerable. A similar trend is observed in the
experimental results of Fig. 6.
6 CONCLUSIONS
In the present work, an experimental set up was
designed to illustrate the importance of the fluid flow
pattern and established dynamic pressure on mem-
brane flux. The experimental results show that two
different flow patterns produced by an impeller, rotat-
ing in the clockwise and counter clockwise directions,
cause a significant difference on the permeate flux.
The permeate fluxes with the clockwise rotation in
some cases are more than three times of those with the
counter clockwise rotation. In order to illustrate the
effect of dynamic pressure on the permeate flux, some
experiments were performed at several rotation speeds
(different Reynolds numbers) in the cell. It was ob-
served that as the rotation speed increases the perme-
ate flux increases.
Prediction of dynamic pressure distribution in-
side the cell is the main contribution of computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling in this study. It is
tried to show the importance of dynamic pressure be-
side the static pressure in microfiltration membrane
separation. By analyzing the experimental and CFD
predicted results it is found that higher dynamic pres-
sure results in more membrane permeate fluxes. In the
other words, the results reveal a direct relation between
the flux and dynamic pressure. Thus a designer should
pay more attention to dynamic pressure as a part of
total pressure across a microfiltration membrane.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to express their thanks to Mr.
Rouzbahani and Miss. Sepehri for their help in the
experimental work.
NOMENCLATURE
A area, m2
C1, C2, Cμ constants of the k-İ model
Eij linear deformation rate, s1
G dissipation function, Pa·s1
J flux, L·m2·h1
P pressure, N·m2
R resistance, m1
T time, s
S source term
U velocity vector, m·s1
u, v, w, ui, uj mean velocity components, m·s1
uƍ, vƍ, wƍ, uci , ucj turbulent fluctuating velocity component, m·s1
xi, xj Cartesian coordinate, m
Į volume fraction of gas phase in the cell
İ turbulence dissipation of k, m2·s3
μ, μT, μeff laminar, turbulent and effective viscosities, Pa˜s
ȞT, Ȟeff turbulent and effective kinematic viscosity
 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2011
ȡ density, kg·m3
ı k, ı İ turbulent Prandtl numbers for k-İ
Subscripts
i, j component
REFERENCES
1 Wang, S., Yu, Y., Gao, G., “Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics
simulation on pure gas permeability through carbon membranes”,
Chin. J. Chem. Eng., 14 (2), 164170 (2006).
2 Lei, Z., Wu, Y., Lu, S., Yang, B., “Mass transfer modeling in per-
vaporation based on multi-fields synergy theory”, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.,
16 (1), 7983 (2008).
3 Zhong, Z., Chen, J., Zhuang, P., “Enhancement of proton exchange
membrane fuel cell performance using a novel tapered gas channel”,
Chin. J. Chem. Eng., 17 (2), 286297 (2009).
4 Belfort, G., “Fluid mechanics in membrane filtration: Recent devel-
opments”, J. Membr. Sci., 40 (2), 123147 (1989).
5 Fimbres-Weihs, G.A., Wiley, D.E., “Review of 3D CFD modeling of
flow and mass transfer in narrow spacer-filled channels in membrane
modules”, Chem. Eng. Proc., 49 (7), 759781 (2010).
6 Liu, Y., He, G., Liu, X., Xiao, G., Li. B., “CFD simulations of turbu-
lent flow in baffle-filled membrane tubes”, Sep. Purif. Technol., 67
(1), 1420 (2009).
7 Agashichev, S.P., “Modeling concentration polarization phenomena
for membrane channel with cylindrical geometry in an ultra filtration
process”, Desalination, 119 (1-3), 159168 (1998).
8 Wiley, D.E., Fletcher, D.F., “Computational fluid dynamics model-
ing of flow and permeation for pressure-driven membrane proc-
esses”, Desalination, 145 (1-3), 183186 (2002).
9 Wiley, D.E., Fletcher, D.F., “Techniques for computational fluid dy-
namics modeling of flow in membrane channels”, J. Membr. Sci.,
211 (1), 127137 (2003).
10 Damak, K., Ayadi, A., Zeghmati, B., Schmitz, P., “A new Na-
vier–Stokes and Darcy’s law combined model for fluid flow in cross
flow filtration tubular membranes”, Desalination, 161 (1), 6777
(2004).
11 Ahmad, A.L., Lau, K.K., Bakar, M.Z.A., Shukor, S.R.A., “Integrated
CFD simulation of concentration polarization in narrow membrane
channel”, Comput. Chem. Eng., 29 (10), 20872095 (2005).
25
12 Rahimi, M., Madaeni, S.S., Abbasi, K., “CFD modeling of permeate
flux in cross flow microfiltration membrane”, J. Membr. Sci., 225
(1-2), 2331 (2005).
13 Ghidossi, R., Veyret, D., Moulin, P., “Computational fluid dynamics
applied to membranes: State of the art and opportunities”, Chem.
Eng. Process., 45 (6), 437454 (2006).
14 Ranade, V.V., Kumar, A., “Comparison of flow structures in spacer-
filled flat and annular channels”, Desalination, 191 (1-3), 236244
(2006).
15 Torras, C., Pallarès, J., Valls, R.G., Jaffrin, M.Y., “CFD simulation of
a rotating disk flat membrane module”, Desalination, 200 (1-3),
453455 (2006).
16 Alexiadis, A., Wiley, D.E., Vishnoi, A., Lee, R.H.K., Fletcher, D.F.,
Bao, J., “CFD modeling of reverse osmosis membrane flow and
validation with experimental results”, Desalination, 217 (1-3), 242250
(2007).
17 Pak, A., Mohammadi, T., Hosseinalipour, S.M., Allahdini, V., “CFD
modeling of porous membranes”, Desalination, 222 (1-3), 482488
(2008).
18 Luo, J.Y., Gosman, A.D., “Prediction of impeller-induced flows in
mixing vessels using multiple frame of reference”, I. Chem. E. Symp.,
136, 549556 (1994).
19 Brucato, A., Ciafalo, M., Grisafi, F., Micale, G., “Numerical predic-
tion of flow fields in baffled stirred vessels: A comparison of alter-
native modeling approaches”, Chem. Eng. Sci., 53 (21), 36533684
(1998).
20 Harris, C.K., Roberts, D., Rosendal, F.J.J., “Computational fluid dy-
namics for chemical reactor engineering”, Chem. Eng. Sci., 51 (10),
15691594 (1996).
21 Launder, B.E., Spalding, D.B, “The numerical computation of tur-
bulent flows, computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering”,
Comput. Methods Appl. Mechanics. Eng., 3 (2), 269289 (1974).
22 Yakhot, V., Orszag, S.A., “Renormalization group analysis of tur-
bulence (I) Basic theory”, J. Sci. Comput., 1, 151 (1986).
23 Versteeg, H.K., Malalasekera, W., An Introduction to Computational
Fluid Dynamics, Longman Limited, England (1995).
24 Iranshahi, A., Devals, C., Heniche, M., fradette, L., Tanguy, P.A.,
Takenaka, K., “Hydrodynamics characterization of the Maxblend
impeller”, Chem. Eng. Sci., 62 (14), 36413653 (2007).
25 Hirt, C.W., Nichols, B.D., “Volume of fluid (VOF) method for the
dynamics of free surface boundaries”, J. Comput. Phys., 39, 201225
(1981).