Application of generic cubic equations of state in the CFD simulation of the sweeping gas polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane distillation

AbstractSweeping gas membrane distillation is one of the membrane separation processes which has many applications in industries such as desalination and water purification. In this work, computational fluid dynamics has been used to model and simulate the momentum and mass transfers in the sweeping gas polytetrafluoroethylene membrane distillation. Three generic cubic equations of state have been used to make a connection between the water concentrations in the liquid and gas phase adjacent to the membrane. The validity of the three proposed cubic equations including Peng–Robison, Redlich–Kwong, and Soave–Redlich–Kwong have been obtained and the results have shown that the best among them in fitting with the experimental results is Peng–Robison. Effect of different operating conditions on the permeate flux such as feed temperature, concentration, flow rate, and sweeping gas flow rate has been examined. The rise in the feed temperature, flow rate and sweeping gas flow rate results in mass transfer driving...