Water/oil separation process via ceramic membranes: Modeling and Simulation

In many industrial processes, such as the oil production, large volumes of oily wastewater are produced which, must be disposed obeying criteria established by environmental agencies. Water/oil separation processes with devices equipped with ceramic membranes has attracted attention of many researchers, for presenting a good cost/benefit relation and simplicity of operation. Thus, this research was performed a numerical study of the water/oil separation process using a double tube type module with a tangential inlet equipped with a ceramic membrane. The simulations were performed using the software ANSYS CFX 12, it was adopted the particle model for describing the flow of the water phase (continuous phase) and oil (dispersed phase) inside the pipe (fluid domain) and the membrane (porous domain). The mass and momentum conservation equations were solved together with the RNG k-e turbulence model Results of the oil volumetric fraction, axial velocity, separation efficiency and velocity vectors are presented and analyzed.