ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Predicting the optimum operating parameters and hydrodynamic behavior of rectangular sheet membrane using response surface methodology coupled with computational fluid dynamics

Anirban Banik, Sushant Kumar Biswal, and Tarun Kanti Bandyopadhyay

Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Agartala, Jirania, Tripura (W), India

E-mail: tarunkantibanerjee0@gmail.com

Received: 25 November 2019  Accepted: 14 March 2020

Abstract:

In the present work, response surface methodology (RSM) was coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to investigate the optimum operating parameters and hydrodynamic behavior of rectangular sheet membrane. The effect of input parameters such as pore size, feed velocity, and operating pressure on permeate flux was also evaluated to predict the optimum conditions. Limited experimental run was designed by implementing the central composite rotatable design-response surface methodology. Polynomial-regression model of second order was developed for regression analysis and analysis of variance study. The optimum conditions of pore size, operating pressure, and feed velocity were found to be 1.95 µm, 134.85 Pa, and 4.82 m/s, respectively. Pareto analysis established that the interaction of pore size-to-pore size was the most significant parameter. The quality of permeate flux was visualized using CFD-based solver. It was found that CFD-predicted pressure drops follow experimental pressure drop with high accuracy.

Keywords: ANOVA study; Computational fluid dynamics; Hydrodynamic behavior; Membrane separation process; Optimization; Response surface methodology; Pareto analysis

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-020-01136-y

Chemical Papers 74 (9) 2977–2990 (2020)