Novel spacer design improves observed flux

Flow and mass transfer in spacer-filled channels for reverse electrodialysis: a CFD parametrical study

“…For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that further papers have been devoted to unsteady flow regimes [43,44], others have been focused on multi-layer or non-conventional spacers [29,[45][46][47][48][49] and others yet have addressed the CFD modelling of pressure driven membrane processes [50][51][52] or of membrane distillation [53,54].…”

Numerical analysis of spacer impacts on forward osmosis membrane process using concentration polarization index

“…In 2D simulations of the RO processes, three spacer configurations in feed channel have typically been used: cavity-, submerged-, and zigzag-type configurations [30,31]. However, in FO processes, more than these three configurations should be considered as spacers play crucial roles in both the feed and draw solution channels, whereas only feed channel spacers are typically analyzed in RO processes.…”

Fluid Dynamics and Mass Transfer in Spacer-Filled Membrane Channels: Effect of Uniform Channel-Gap Reduction Due to Fouling

“…Significant work along these lines has been reported (focusing on small or intermediate spatial scales) aiming to understand the effect of spacer characteristics on flow and mass transfer (e.g., [12][13][14]) in order to optimize the feed-spacer geometry (e.g., [15][16][17]) and to study fouling, including bio-fouling (e.g., [18,19]) phenomena. These detailed studies of the flow field in the spacer-filled channels, focusing on a "unit cell" formed by the net-type spacers (also considering periodicity), have proven to be quite fruitful; in addition to improved basic understanding, they have yielded correlations of pressure drop and mass transfer applicable at "unit cell" scale [20,21].…”