Vibration assisted water-diesel separation by electrospun PVDF-HFP fiber mats

• Fiber membrane (PVDF-HFP) was used to separate water droplets from diesel fuel.
• Generally, vibration improved water-diesel separation efficiency.
• Vibration promoted the aggregation of water on the fibers to enhance separation.
• Water separation reached the highest efficiency at the frequency of 100 Hz.

Water contaminations in fuels are known to adversely affect engine performance and can cause corrosion or plugging of engine components. Filters and membranes are applied to reduce the concentrations of water upstream of the engine. Operating conditions can affect the performance of the filters and membranes. In this work the effects of externally induced vibrations on electrospun Poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) fiber mats for water-diesel separation are studied. The electrospun fiber mats operated as barriers to hinder water drops from flowing with Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel fuel. As with most barrier media, if the water concentrates on the upstream side of the membrane then the water may find ways to penetrate and the separation performance declines. External vibrations are evaluated in this work to aid the removal of water drops from the upstream surface of the fiber mats to improve the separation performance. The results show the vibrations improved the separation performances but were dependent on the filter orientation to gravity and on the vibrational frequencies.

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