Effect of feed spacer geometric design in a spiral wound module of reverse osmosis process on the removal of dimethyl phenol from wastewater. Simulation‐based model

Abstract

AbstractThe reverse osmosis (RO) technology has engaged in the removal of a wide set of pollutants including dimethylphenol at a high rejection. The goal of this research is to explore the influence of spacer geometric design on the performance metrics of an individual spiral wound module of RO process to eliminate dimethylphenol from wastewater. The study entails the embedding of an author's model developed to envisage the performance of a spiral wound membrane‐based wastewater treatment with a detailed model of feed spacer (collected from the open literature) utilised to characterise the pressure drop along the feed channel. A comprehensive simulation study is conducted to observe the impact of feed flow rate on the energy dissipation and mass transfer coefficient of several selected feed spacers of different design characteristics. Accordingly, the consequence of feed spacer design parameters was analysed on the performance metrics of RO process including the dimethylphenol rejection and water recovery. It is found that the angle of flow diversion, voidage, and feed spacer height have a considerable effect on the pressure drop, mass transfer coefficient, and axial velocity, which accordingly affect the overall performance indicators. The results show the success of feed spacers 80MIL‐1 and 80MIL‐2 to gain the highest dimethylphenol rejection and associated water recovery.