Influence of random arrangement of hollow fiber membranes on shell side mass transfer performance: a novel model prediction

An analysis of the effects of the fiber random packing on the mass transfer coefficient for the parallel flow module is presented in this work. According to the model description, the fiber random arrangement caused a slight decrease (9–16%) on the shell side mass transfer coefficient. The ratio between the mass transfer coefficient in random packing and the coefficient in uniform packing was in the range of 0.91–0.84, and this value decreased slightly with increasing the module packing density. It was also found that the model prediction values fitted the experimental data relatively well when the effect of the fiber random arrangement was taken into account for the moderately packed module. The mass transfer correlation presented in this work was also compared with the results from the literatures, which indicated that the correlation proposed here showed high flexibility in prediction of the shell side mass transfer coefficient.