Introducing surface patterns on disc ceramic membranes to alleviate membrane fouling: Numerical simulation and experiments

In order to improve filtration efficiency and anti-fouling ability, ring and line patterns were introduced on disc ceramic membranes due to improved hydrodynamic conditions. The merits of the line-patterned disc ceramic membrane (LPM) and ring-patterned disc ceramic membrane (RPM) were assessed through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and corroborated by ceramic slurry filtration tests. Patterned membranes offered advantages over smooth membranes (SM) in mitigating membrane fouling. Furthermore, LPM had been demonstrated to exhibit superior performance to RPM. The average and maximum velocities of the LPM were observed to increase by an average of 19.35 % and 23.93 %, respectively, at three rotational speeds (249 rpm, 430 rpm and 621 rpm) in comparison to the SM. Additionally, the average and maximum shear stresses of the LPM demonstrated an average increase of 55.83 % and 389.81 %, respectively. At transmembrane pressures (TMP) of 0.25 bar, 0.5 bar and 0.75 bar, the normalized permeate fluxes of LPM were 0.1, 0.18, and 0.23 higher than those of SM respectively. High shear stress and velocity bring particles from the membrane surface back into the fluid, mitigating membrane fouling and flux decay. The results suggest that the introduction of patterns morphology is an effective method to improve the fouling resistance of disc ceramic membranes.