Investigations into the effects of mass transport and flow dynamics of spacer filled membrane modules using CFD

Fluid flow is of complex nature near the bottom membrane wall as the phenomena of flow reversal and separation are evident from the above figure. As a result wall shear stress and mass transfer coefficient at the two membrane surfaces are not identical and hence leads to different fouling propensities of the membrane surfaces. Spacer Configuration Efficacy (SCE) is defined in this work as an attempt to arrive at optimum spacer configuration, yielding higher (but almost equal) mass transfer coefficient values at the two membrane walls at moderate pressure drop.