An experimental and modeling investigation of the behaviors of solution in fluoropolymers hollow fiber membranes (HFMs)

This work focuses on the mass transfer in hydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and poly (tetrafluoroethylene-co-hexafluoropropylene) (FEP) hollow fiber membranes, using a combination of experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Our experimental design considered a wider range of viscosity and surface tension for the feed solution (kerosene, lubricating oil and water), a larger span of operation temperature (25–85 °C), and longer usage time (8 h). The membranes were characterized for the permeability, morphologies, pore size distribution, porosity, water contact angle (WCA), roughness, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and tensile property. Numerical simulations of two-phase and single-phase flow in micron membrane channels were performed for several selected groups to assist interpretations of the experiments and to examine the effects of wettability, viscosity and pore size on the mass transfer process. The simulations base on the OpenFOAM-model agree well with the experimental results. Collectively, this study provides new insights regarding mass transfer in membrane channels and reference data for the use of fluoropolymers membranes for non-aqueous solution, especially high viscosity oil.