Hollow fiber polytetrafluoroethylene membrane heat exchanger with anti-corrosion properties

Abstract

Thin hollow polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) fibers (thickness: 200 μm; outer diameter: 1.3 mm; inner diameter: 0.9 mm) were produced by a specially designed die via stretching and sintering, and assembled into a shell-and-tube membrane heat exchanger. The effects of the flow velocities on the heat transfer performance and thermal resistance were studied in a water-water system. The maximum overall heat transfer coefficient (OHTC) was up to 391 W/(m2‧K) (flow velocities: 0.24 m/s for hot water; 0.11 m/s for cold water). The OHTC became larger (increased from 229 to 391 W/(m2‧K)) at a higher cold water flow velocity (increased from 0.02 to 0.11 m/s) on the shell side when maintaining the hot water flows on the tube side. The OHTC increased from 119 to 391 W/(m2‧K) first and then decreased to 298 W/(m2‧K) with the increase of the hot water flow velocities (from 0.08 to 0.40 m/s) on the tube side, while maintaining the cold water flow velocity on the shell side. The thermal resistance results showed that the increased flow velocity (0.11 m/s) on the shell side significantly reduced the thermal resistance to 2.56 × 10−3 K m2/W on the shell side. Furthermore, the flow turbulence on the tube side is favorable for the heat transfer, and the optimum flow velocity on the tube side was 0.24 m/s. The hollow PTFE fibers were extremely stable and durable in corrosive solutions, with less than 1% changes in bursting strength, tensile strength at break, and elongation at break. This work opens new opportunities for the fabrication and application of hollow fiber PTFE membrane heat exchangers to reuse waste heat in high temperature corrosive environments.