Produced water treatment by ceramic membrane: A numerical investigation by computational fluid dynamics

Abstract

The disposal of industrial effluents into the environment is an issue that has attracted attention of researchers and engineers with particular reference for produced water originating from the petroleum industry. Separation process using ceramic membranes has been an alternative used to obey requirements of environmental agencies in Brazil related to disposal of oil and grease. Accordingly, we have studied numerically the fluid flow into a separation module with tubular membrane. The conservation equations for mass, linear momentum, and mass transport in conjunction with the renormalization group k-e turbulence model were resolved with aid of the ANSYS CFX 12 commercial package. Results of the streamlines, vector velocity, pressure, velocity, and concentration fields are presented and analyzed. It was concluded that the proposed mathematical model predicts the behavior of the flow within the separation module and that increasing the level of turbulence and putting an impermeable section into the inlet region of the membrane reduce the effect of the polarization layer.

Innovative Optical-Sensing Technology for the Online Fouling Characterization of Silicon Carbide Membranes during the Treatment of Oily Water

“…Others are based on zeolites, microporous carbon, or silicon carbide (SiC). Several ceramic membrane have been evaluated for their microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF) and nanofiltration (NF) performance during the treatment of PW, particularly membranes based on Al 2 O 3 , TiO 2 and ZrO 2 [19,[22][23][24][25][26].…”

“…8.0•10 8 m −1 [63]. At higher TMPs, more severe fouling was observed because oil and particulates that pass through the membrane are adsorbed and accumulate within the pore channels [25,61].…”

Hydrodynamic and Performance Evaluation of a Porous Ceramic Membrane Module Used on the Water–Oil Separation Process: An Investigation by CFD

“…All potential assigned to the ceramic membranes justifies the intensification of scientific works that seek to enhance the treatment of produced water with this technology [29,31,[37][38][39][40]. In the literature, several studies have been reported using computational fluid dynamics as a tool to investigate the process separation of oily waters [40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. Cunha (2014) [39] numerically studied the treatment of petroleum industrial effluents using a ceramic membrane.…”

“…In this context, the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) technique provides information and new models for the application of membranes and contributes to the understanding of the filtration mechanisms [ 43 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ]. The computational fluid dynamics enables the understanding and development of new membrane separation processes, allowing researchers to study, in detail, phenomena such as fouling, concentration polarization, and pore-clogging, responsible for reducing the filtration rate and favoring contamination of the permeate.…”