Investigations on the effect of spacer in direct contact and air gap membrane distillation using computational fluid dynamics

Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) and air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) have emerged as potential technologies for water and wastewater treatment. This investigation developed a comprehensive two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model to describe and simulate heat transfer, mass transfer, and fluid flow in DCMD and AGMD processes. The effect of Reynolds number, inlet feed temperature, and distance between two successive spacer filaments on the performance parameters such as mass flux, temperature polarisation, concentration polarisation, and thermal efficiency was investigated in this work. The feed and permeate side heat transfer coefficient increased with Re in the DCMD and AGMD models. The thickness of the velocity boundary layers reduced upon introducing spacers in the feed and permeate channels. The mass flux on the introduction of spacers increased in DCMD and AGMD models because the boundary layer resistance was reduced. The models with spacer showed a lower oncentration polarisation. DCMD model demonstrated a loweroncentration polarisation than the AGMD model as the former has higher mass flux than the latter leading to a higher solute concentration on the membrane surface. The thermal boundary layer was smaller in the spacer-filled channel because of the fluid mixing. In the AGMD model, the permeate side thermal boundary layer was unaffected because of the poor conductivity of air than water.