Numerical Study of Oil/Water Separation by Ceramic Membranes in the Presence of Turbulent Flow

Abstract

Disposal of produced water during petroleum extraction causes serious environmental damage, hence the need to complete the water treatment before being disposed to environment within the criteria set established by environmental agencies in the countries. Ceramics membranes have been highlighted as a good device for separating oil/water. These act as a barrier to oil in the aqueous stream, because their essential properties for filtration, such as chemical inertness, biological stability and resistance to high temperatures. The limitation of the separation process is the decay of permeate flux during operation, due to concentration polarization and fouling. In this sense, this paper aims to evaluate numerically the feasibility of the process of separating oil/water by means of ceramic membranes in the presence of a turbulent flow induced by a tangential inlet. The results of the velocity, pressure and volumetric fraction distributions for the simulations different by varying the mass flow rate inlet and different geometric characteristics of the membrane are presented and analyzed.

Oily Water Treatment by Ceramic Membrane: Modeling and Simulation

“…Besides, solute accumulation at interface membrane/solution is inevitable. Because of the importance, several studies involving the membrane separation process with computer codes' aid based on CFD tools (Computational Fluid Dynamics) have been conducted, for example, Porciúncula [9], Vieira et al [13], Souza [14], Cunha [15], Cunha et al [16], Cunha et al [17], Magalhães et al [18], Souza et al [19], Magalhães et al [20], Oliveira [21] and Magalhães et al [22].…”

Mass Transfer in Tubular Ceramic Membranes for Polluted Water Treatment - Numerical Simulation

“…According to the work of several researchers [4][5][6][7], a wide use of membranes for studies on reducing fouling and polarized layer, increasing the permeate flux through chemical, physical and hydrodynamic methods, in various application fields, have been made. Hydrodynamic methods consist in modifying the membrane module configuration.…”

“…have been used. This aids in increasing the shear rate thereby decreasing the polarized layer and increasing the permeate flux [7][8][9]. For the oil / water separating process by tangential microfiltration, it is shown by Vieira et al [7] that the changes in the inlet flow rate, as well as the geometry of the tubular membrane module, providing a swirling flow, could optimize the separation process by increasing the permeate volume.…”

“…This aids in increasing the shear rate thereby decreasing the polarized layer and increasing the permeate flux [7][8][9]. For the oil / water separating process by tangential microfiltration, it is shown by Vieira et al [7] that the changes in the inlet flow rate, as well as the geometry of the tubular membrane module, providing a swirling flow, could optimize the separation process by increasing the permeate volume. In view of the impossibility of experimental measurement of the polarization boundary layer, to calculate the diffused species concentration, the steady state condition in the membrane surface assumption is necessary [10].…”

Hydrocyclone Applications in Produced Water: A Steady-State Numerical Analysis

“…Such values range from 29ppm in the Gulf of Mexico and 20ppm in Brazil. In Norway, the oil operators have agreed to implement a policy of zero harmful discharges in the environment (Neff, 2002;Ahmadun et al, 2009;Souza et al, 2011;Vieira et al, 2012).…”