Study on the Membrane Fouling Process and Mechanism of Constant Pressure Filtration in Stirred Membrane Reactors

Stirred membrane reactors allow for catalyst recycling and product separation. However, membrane fouling becomes a major problem limiting such reactors. In this work, the dynamic process and mechanism of constant pressure filtration membrane fouling were investigated through experiments combined with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The results show that according to the Hermia model, the filtration model at the high shear position is the cake filtration model, and the filtration model at the low shear position is the combined filtration model due to the different particle accumulation speeds. Second, the stronger the shear rate or the lower the transmembrane pressure, the easier it is for the filtration system to stabilize. However, the smaller the porosity ϵ, the larger the fraction of small particles in the filter cake. Finally, this work explains the mechanism of membrane fouling from the changes in particle radial velocity and acceleration at the micro level.