هادی سلطانی

The present study focuses on mathematical modeling and simulation of a membrane distillation process. A phenomenological model is utilized to predict transfer of species in a membrane distillation module. The used membrane module comprises a bunch of porous hollow-fibers, while the considered process is the vacuum-driven membrane distillation. For simulation of process, a computational fluid dynamics approach was applied. The latter was implemented based on finite element analysis for a numerical solution of the governing equations. An aqueous solution containing volatile organic 1, 1, 1-trichloroethane (TCA) was considered for the entire simulation under steady-state conditions. The simulation results were compared with experimental data reported in literature and demonstrated good agreement. Moreover, concentration of TCA and a heat transfer flux profile were obtained in the membrane module and analyzed.