Modeling and simulation of cross-flow transport membrane condenser heat exchangers

Transport Membrane Condenser (TMC) is a promising technology that works based on the capillary condensation property of the nano-scale ceramic porous membrane materials and can recover both waste heat and water in various industrial applications. For applications with high volume flow rate such as in power plants, a large number of TMC heat exchangers are required, which highlights the importance of the optimum design for the TMC exchangers in order to obtain the maximum heat transfer and minimum cost of the TMC heat exchanger unit. In this paper, the effects of different tube spacing and the inlet water vapor mass fraction on the overall performance of a membrane-based heat exchanger have been studied numerically using a combined condensation model based on the capillary condensation and condensation on a solid wall. The results were obtained in terms of the Euler number, dimensionless volumetric heat transfer density, and contours of the water mass fraction and temperature distribution inside the TMC heat exchanger.