INVESTIGATION OF DEAD-END FILTRATION OF CRUDE BIODIESEL USING REVERSE OSMOSIS MEMBRANE THROUGH CFD SIMULATION

The present study investigates the novel concept of using reverse osmosis membranes in crude biodiesel filtration through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. In this regard, the transesterification production of biodiesel is a batch process and requires washing. This research focused on the filtration of crude biodiesel using suitable molecular weight cutoff ratio membranes. The investigation was carried out as a multiphase mixture flow through a porous medium using the ANSYS 2020 R2 CFD solver software program for dead end filtration. The results obtained on the novel filtration of crude biodiesel using the CFD solver highlights the viscosity reduction, density reduction, and permeate volume fraction of suspended molecules, which represents the production of high-quality biodiesel. Furthermore, the volume fraction of the suspended molecules passed through the membrane as a penetrant, leaving a trace amount and retaining the fatty acid methyl ester molecules. The density and viscosity were reduced due to the removal of the suspended molecules. © 2022 by Begell House, Inc.