CFD and experimental studies on the hydrodynamic performance of submerged flat-sheet membrane bioreactor equipped with micro-channel turbulence promoters

The aim of the present work is to propose a new type of micro-channel turbulence promoters equipped with the submerged flat-sheet membrane bioreactor to enhance membrane flux, mitigate membrane fouling and reduce energy consumption. The hydrodynamic and filtration performance of micro-channel turbulence promoter (MCTP) with micro-pores and without micro-pore in the submerged flat-sheet membrane bioreactor carried out by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and filtration performance experiments. The CFD simulation results and the experimental results showed that MCTP with micro-pores in the submerged flat-sheet membrane bioreactor could further increase average velocity 10.41%, turbulent kinetic energy 4.41% and wall shear stress 56.00% on the flat-sheet membrane surface, thereby enhancing membrane flux 21.64%, decrease total resistance 46.41% and save energy 28.76% compared with MCTP without micro-pore.