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Modeling and Prediction of the Performance of Membrane Processes

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A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Membrane Physics and Theory".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2022) | Viewed by 11527

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Julio López Rodríguez

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Guest Editor

Chemical Engineering Department and Barcelona Research Center for Multiscale Science and Engineering, UPC-BarcelonaTECH, 08930 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: membranes; resource recovery; waste to product; acid waters; brines; nanofiltration; ion-exchange resins; diffusion dialysis; modeling; membrane scaling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Marc Fernández de Labastida Ventura

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Guest Editor

Chemical Engineering Department and Barcelona Research Center for Multiscale Science and Engineering, UPC-BarcelonaTECH, 08930 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: membranes; membrane characterization; resource recovery; waste to product; modeling; ion-exchange membranes; nanofiltration; concentration polarization

Dr. Andrea Cipollina

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Guest Editor

Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Interests: chemical engineering; conceptual design of chemical processes; membrane processes for water and energy applications; mineral recovery; electrodialysis; reverse electrodialysis; desalination; brine valorization technologies; salinity gradient power; reactive crystallization; prototyping; mathematical modelling; numerical simulation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few years, the application of membrane technologies has been preferred over traditional methods because of their higher selectivity, production rate, and lower energy consumption, among others. Because of that, new membrane processes and applications are emerging for the treatment of different kinds of water, such as seawater, groundwater, brines and industrial effluents, and gas separation.

Several non-ideal phenomena can occur during membrane operation, such as polarization, fouling, and/or scaling or changes in the feed composition. In order to overcome these limitations, mathematical models can be used to anticipate them and implement suitable technical solutions. Apart from that, models can also be used for the optimization of membrane processes, scaling up, system design, and cost estimation. A considerable effort has been devoted to improving well-stablished membrane models during the last few years, allowing to decrease the differences between experimental data and model results.

This Special Issue aims to expand the knowledge of mathematical models for the prediction and simulation of membrane processes. Within this topic, expected contributions include models from fundamental to applied approaches dealing with any kind of limitation, prediction and/or optimization of membrane processes, membrane characterization, fouling and/or scaling prediction, and cost estimation under different scenarios. In this Special Issue, original research articles, reviews, and short communications are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Transport phenomena in membrane processes;
Pressure-driven membrane processes;
Ion-exchange membrane processes;
Vapor-pressure-driven membrane processes;
Membranes for gas separation;
Hybrid membrane processes;
Membrane fouling and scaling prediction;
Optimization of membrane processes;
Cost estimation of membrane processes.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Julio López Rodríguez
Dr. Marc Fernández de Labastida Ventura
Dr. Andrea Cipollina
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

mass transport modeling
process development and optimization
membrane characterization
transport phenomena
computer fluid dynamics
polarization phenomena
scaling up
membranes

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 2505 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Design of a Reverse Electrodialysis Plant for Salinity Gradient Energy Extraction in a Coastal Wastewater Treatment Plant

by Tamara Sampedro, Carolina Tristán, Lucía Gómez-Coma, Marcos Fallanza, Inmaculada Ortiz and Raquel Ibañez

Membranes 2023, 13(6), 546; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes13060546 - 24 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1098

Abstract

The chemical potential difference at the discharge points of coastal Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) uncovers the opportunity to harness renewable salinity gradient energy (SGE). This work performs an upscaling assessment of reverse electrodialysis (RED) for SGE harvesting of two selected WWTPs located in Europe, quantified in terms of net present value (NPV). For that purpose, a design tool based on an optimization model formulated as a Generalized Disjunctive Program previously developed by the research group has been applied. The industrial scale-up of SGE-RED has already proven to be technically and economically feasible in the Ierapetra medium-sized plant (Greece), mainly due to a greater volumetric flow and a warmer temperature. At the current price of electricity in Greece and the up-to-date market cost of membranes of 10 EUR/m², the NPV of an optimized RED plant in Ierapetra would amount to EUR117 thousand operating with 30 RUs in winter and EUR 157 thousand for 32 RUs in summer, harnessing 10.43 kW and 11.96 kW of SGE for the winter and summer seasons, respectively. However, in the Comillas facility (Spain), this could be cost-competitive with conventional alternatives, namely coal or nuclear power, under certain conditions such as lower capital expenses due to affordable membrane commercialization (4 EUR/m²). Bringing the membrane price down to 4 EUR/m² would place the SGE-RED’s Levelized Cost of Energy in the range of 83 EUR/MWh to 106 EUR/MWh, similar to renewable sources such as solar PV residential rooftops. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modeling and Prediction of the Performance of Membrane Processes)

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15 pages, 2551 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimization of the Design Configuration and Operation Strategy of Single-Pass Seawater Reverse Osmosis

by Seung Ji Lim, Seo Jin Ki, Jae-Lim Lim, Kyunghyuk Lee, Jihye Kim, Jeongwoo Moon and Joon Ha Kim

Membranes 2022, 12(11), 1145; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12111145 - 15 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1640

Abstract

The numerical study was conducted to compare process performance depending on the pump type and process configuration. The daily monitoring data of seawater temperature and salinity offshore from Daesan, Republic of Korea was used to reflect the site-specific seawater conditions. An algorithm for reverse osmosis in constant permeate mode was developed to simulate the process in time-variant conditions. Two types of pumps with different maximum leachable efficiencies were employed to organize pump-train configuration: separated feed lines and common pressure center design. The results showed pump type and design configuration did not have a significant effect on process performance. The annual means of specific energy consumption (SEC) for every design configuration were under 2 kWh/m³, except for a worst-case. The worst-case was decided when the pump was operated out of the best operation range. The two operation strategies were evaluated to determine the optimal configuration. The permeate flow rate was reduced to 80% of the designed permeate flow rate with two approaches: feed flow rate reduction in every train and pump shutdown in a specific train. The operation mode with feed flow rate reduction was more efficient than the other. The operating pressure reduction led to a decrease in SEC. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modeling and Prediction of the Performance of Membrane Processes)

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13 pages, 2728 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Percolation Effects in Mixed Matrix Membranes with Embedded Carbon Nanotubes

by Yury Eremin, Alexey Grekhov and Anton Belogorlov

Membranes 2022, 12(11), 1100; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12111100 - 4 Nov 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1321

Abstract

Polymeric membranes with embedded nanoparticles, e.g., nanotubes, show a significant increase in permeability of the target component while maintaining selectivity. However, the question of the reasons for this behavior of the composite membrane has not been unequivocally answered to date. In the present work, based on experimental data on the permeability of polymer membranes based on Poly(vinyl trimethylsilane) (PVTMS) with embedded CNTs, an approach to explain the abnormal behavior of such composite membranes is proposed. The presented model considered the mass transfer of gases and liquids through polymeric membranes with embedded CNTs as a parallel transport of gases through the polymeric matrix and a “percolation” cluster—bound regions around the embedded CNTs. The proposed algorithm for modeling parameters of a percolation cluster of embedded tubular particles takes into account an agglomeration and makes it possible to describe the threshold increase and subsequent decrease permeability with increasing concentration of embedded particles. The numerical simulation of such structures showed: an increase in the particle length leads to a decrease in the percolation concentration in a matrix of finite size, the power of the percolation cluster decreases significantly, but the combination of these effects leads to a decrease in the influence of the introduced particles on the properties of the matrix in the vicinity of the percolation threshold; an increase in the concentration of embedded particles leads to an increase in the probability of the formation of agglomerates and the characteristic size of the elements that make up the percolation cluster, the influence of individual particles decreases and the characteristics of the percolation transition determine the ratio of the sizes of agglomerates and matrix; and an increase in the lateral linear dimensions of the matrix leads to a nonlinear decrease in the proportion of the matrix, which is affected by the introduced particles, and the transport characteristics of such MMMs deteriorate. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modeling and Prediction of the Performance of Membrane Processes)

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15 pages, 2276 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Can Hindered Transport Models for Rigid Spheres Predict the Rejection of Single Stranded DNA from Porous Membranes?

by Hossein Nouri Alavijeh and Ruth E. Baltus

Membranes 2022, 12(11), 1099; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12111099 - 4 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1478

Abstract

In this paper, predictions from a theoretical model describing the rejection of a rigid spherical solute from porous membranes are compared to experimental results for a single stranded DNA (ssDNA) with 60 thymine nucleotides. Experiments were conducted with different pore size track-etched membranes at different transmembrane pressures and different NaCl concentrations. The model includes both hydrodynamic and electrostatic solute–pore wall interactions; predictions were made using different size parameters for the ssDNA (radius of gyration, hydrodynamic radius, and root mean square end-to-end distance). At low transmembrane pressures, experimental results are in good agreement with rejection predictions made using the hard sphere model for the ssDNA when the solute size is described using its root mean square end-to-end distance. When the ssDNA size is characterized using the radius of gyration or the hydrodynamic radius, the hard sphere model under-predicts rejection. Not surprisingly, the model overestimates ssDNA rejection at conditions where flow induced elongation of the DNA is expected. The results from this study are encouraging because they mean that a relatively simple hindered transport model can be used to estimate the rejection of a small DNA from porous membranes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modeling and Prediction of the Performance of Membrane Processes)

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31 pages, 9666 KiB

Open AccessArticle

PyVaporation: A Python Package for Studying and Modelling Pervaporation Processes

by Denis Andzheevich Sapegin and Aleksei Viktorovich Chekmachev

Membranes 2022, 12(8), 784; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12080784 - 15 Aug 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2846

Abstract

PyVaporation—a freely available Python package with an open-source code for modelling and studying pervaporation processes—is introduced. The theoretical background of the solution, its applicability and limitations are discussed. The usability of the package is evaluated using various examples of working with and modelling experimental data. A general equation for the representation of a component’s permeance as a function of feed composition, temperature and initial feed composition is proposed and implemented in the developed package. The suggested general permeance equation may be used for the description of an extremal character of permeance as a function of process temperature and feed composition, allowing the description of processes with a high degree of non-ideality. The application of the package allowed modelling experimental points of various sets of hydrophilic pervaporation data and data on membrane performance from independent sources with a relative root mean square deviation of not more than 9% for flux and not more than 5% for a separated mixture concentration. The application of the facilitated parameter approach allowed the prediction of the components’ permeance as a function of feed concentration at various initial feed concentrations with a relative root mean square error of 3–26%. The package was proven useful for modelling isothermal and adiabatic time and length-dependent pervaporation processes. The comparison of the models obtained with PyVaporation with models provided in the literature indicated similar accuracy of the obtained results, thereby proving the applicability of the developed package. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modeling and Prediction of the Performance of Membrane Processes)

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Review

Jump to: Research

24 pages, 14534 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Review on the Morphology and Material Properties of the Gas Separation Membrane: Molecular Simulation

by Yilin Liu, Na Li, Xin Cui, Weichao Yan, Jincai Su and Liwen Jin

Membranes 2022, 12(12), 1274; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12121274 - 15 Dec 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2374

Abstract

Gas membrane separation technology is widely applied in different industry processes because of its advantages relating to separation performance and economic efficiency. It is usually difficult and time consuming to determine the suitable membrane materials for specific industrial separation processes through traditional experimental research methods. Molecular simulation is widely used to investigate the microscopic morphology and macroscopic properties of materials, and it guides the improvement of membrane materials. This paper comprehensively reviews the molecular-level exploration of the dominant mechanism and influencing factors of gas membrane-based separation. The thermodynamics and kinetics of polymer membrane synthesis, the molecular interactions among the penetrated gases, the relationships between the membrane properties and the transport characteristics of different gases in the composite membrane are summarized and discussed. The limitations and perspectives of the molecular simulation method in the study of the gas membrane separation process are also presented to rationalize its potential and innovative applications. This review provides a more comprehensive reference for promoting the materials’ design and engineering application of the gas separation membrane. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modeling and Prediction of the Performance of Membrane Processes)

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