Performance characterization and design evaluation of spinning basket membrane (SBM) module using computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

Performance characterization and hydrodynamic simulation of a newly proposed Dynamic shear enhanced (DSE) module, equipped with an inbuilt cleaning facility has been presented in this article. The module, presently in lab-scale has been named as spinning basket membrane (SBM) module because of its inherent geometric similarity with the well known spinning basket reactor. The module performance was evaluated in ultrafiltration of polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000)/water solution, under different parametric conditions using polyethersulfone membrane of 5 kDa molecular weight cut-off. A detail CFD simulation of the proposed device was conducted using the standard two equation k − ε model because of the existing turbulent flow regime under all possible operating conditions. Subsequently the mass transfer characteristic was explained in the light of prevalent hydrodynamic picture. Moreover, in terms of performance rating, it is to be noted that the final regenerated flux after 21 h of continuous run was well within 85% of the flux obtained at the time of start-up.