A modified resistance model for simulating baffle arrangement impacts on cross-flow microfiltration performance for oily wastewater

As a principal problem in the microltration processes, cake formation and concentration polarization phenomena cause permeate ux reduction. In the industrial scale, bae as a turbulence promoter is an ecient method to decrease the fouling phenomenon. In the current study, eleven bae arrangements in the feed channel were considered for an oily wastewater emulsion. The baes with four general congurations of wall bae, central bae, baes installed near the membrane surface, and a combination of them are used. The eects of bae arrangements on turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent dissipation rate, pressure drop, and shear rate, and oil concentration on the membrane surface are examined under steady-state conditions. A modied model of total resistance is proposed to predict the bae impacts on the CP and cake layer thicknesses and decrease the computational time. The predicted values are compared against experimental data and the absolute relative error is decreased from 6.54 % to 0.03 % by applying the modied resistance model. As the main results, the baes installed near the membrane surface are more ecient to separate oil from oil-in-water emulsion but it may be caused some problems at higher processing times and the central baes are recommended for the industrial applications.