Abstract
Two descriptions of a semipermeable hollow fiber undergoing reverse osmosis are compared. The inherent limitations of a constant seepage assumption are deduced from a more general approach which includes the simultaneous coupling between the transport across the fiber wall and the flow through the fiber bore. For the coupled model, the critical radii corresponding to a maximum axial mass flux for symmetric and asymmetric membranes are shown to be comparable under certain limiting conditions. A distribution of membrane permeabilities is employed to account for the random variation of fiber properties within a bundle. Rigorous lower bounds on an effective bundle permeability, K eff are derived and compared with experiments: also, a theoretical connection between K eff and the average membrane permeability K is established.
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