Corrugating pore membranes improves filtration technology

Membrane filtration is an environmentally friendly solution for producing clean water without using chemicals. An efficient filter requires a permeability small enough to provide adequate filtration but large enough for high flow rate.

To meet this challenge, Tran-Duc et al. investigate ceramic membranes and relate the pore geometry to filtration efficiency. Specifically, they compared the permeability of corrugated pores to smooth ones through hydrodynamic simulations.

“Improving permeate flow rate through membranes will definitely help to reduce cost,” said author Thien Tran-Duc. “The corrugated pore structure could be a solution for consideration.”

The smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations showed that corrugated pore membranes enhanced permeability and flow rate without sacrificing filtration efficiency.

The authors found that the pore length to corrugation amplitude ratio played a key role in affecting permeability. In the three pore configurations studied, they identified the ideal range of the ratio of corrugation amplitude to length for the most improvement in permeability and flow rate.

“Numerical experiments in the current study show that suitable choices of the corrugation amplitude and the corrugation length can substantially increase membrane permeability without affecting its filtration function,” said Tran-Duc. “Moreover, the corrugation structure is quite simple for implementation in practice.”

In the future, the authors intend to study this concept experimentally. Key aspects of this research will include a comparison of filtration at various corrugation amplitudes to different corrugation lengths and pore radius.

Source: “On permeability of corrugated pore membranes,” by Thien Tran-Duc, Nhan Phan-Thien, and Natalie Thamwattana, AIP Advances (2020). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0006017 .