Title: Exergy analysis of micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration

Authors: Karan R. Chavan; Srivats Gopalan; Kumudini V. Marathe

Addresses: Department of Chemical Engineering, ICT Matunga, Mumbai 400019, India ' Department of Chemical Engineering, ICT Matunga, Mumbai 400019, India ' Department of Chemical Engineering, ICT Matunga, Mumbai 400019, India

Abstract: Exergy analysis of micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration was studied to know the exergy efficiency of the two membranes namely, polysulphone hollow fibre membrane (HFM) and ceramictubular membrane (CTM). Organic pollutants, phenol and o-cresol were removed by adding C-TAB as surfactant in a pilot plant system. The exergetic flow values such as specific exergy and exergy rates have been estimated at different points in the two membrane system to analyse the exergy destruction in totality. The membrane systems have been compared on the basis of exergy efficiencies and separation efficiencies. The exergy efficiencies have been found to be 90.16% for HFM and 41.05% for CTM, respectively. In this study the minimum power input required for the complete separation of organic pollutants has been calculated to compare the experimental values with an ideal scenario and was found to be 1.35 W for HFM and 1.2 W for CTM organic systems, respectively.

Keywords: exergy analysis; Micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration; MEUF; hollow fibre membrane; polysulphone HFM; ceramic membrane; exergy efficiency; organic pollutants; phenol; o-cresol; surfactants; exergy destruction; water pollution; wastewater treatment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2016.076859

International Journal of Exergy, 2016 Vol.20 No.2, pp.139 - 149

Received: 27 Sep 2014
Accepted: 26 May 2015
Published online: 04 Jun 2016 *

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