CFD simulation of water flow through a SWRO membrane

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Klara, Syerly and Mahmuddin, Faisal and Syarif, Muhammad Raziman and Ardianti, Andi and Ahmed, Yaseen and Nur, Muhammad (2025) CFD simulation of water flow through a SWRO membrane. CFD Letters, 18 (4). pp. 94-102. ISSN 2180-1363

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Abstract

Seawater treatment through Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology requires high pressure to push water through membranes, necessitating pumps with significant operational costs. This study aims to analyze the effect of membrane pore size variations and pump pressure on flow velocity and flux in a Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) system. Numerical simulations were conducted using ANSYS CFX with membrane pore size variations (1 micrometer, 2 micrometer, and 3 micrometer) at inlet pressures of 30 psi and 145.04 psi (10 bar). The membrane was modeled into three bodies: lnlet, porous, and outlet, with fine tetrahedral meshing elements to capture detailed flow changes. Validation was performed by comparing simulation results without a membrane against experimental data. The simulation results showed that at 30 psi, the flow velocity and flux produced were still low, particularly for the 1 micrometer membrane, increasing the pressure to 145.04 psi significantly improved the flux, with the 3 micrometer membrane achieving a flux of 23.4 LMH, which meets SWRO industry standards. This study demonstrates that variations in pore size and pump pressure significantly affect the performance of SWRO systems. Higher pump pressures are required to achieve adequate flow ad flux, especially for membranes with smaller pores.

ORCID iDs

Klara, Syerly, Mahmuddin, Faisal, Syarif, Muhammad Raziman, Ardianti, Andi, Ahmed, Yaseen ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2324-2075 and Nur, Muhammad;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)