Numerical Investigation of Fabricated MWCNTs/Polystyrene Nanofibrous Membrane for DCMD

Asmaa Elrasheedy; Mohammed Rabie; Ahmed El-Shazly; Mohamed Bassyouni; S M S Abdel-Hamid; Marwa F El Kady

doi:10.3390/polym13010160

Numerical Investigation of Fabricated MWCNTs/Polystyrene Nanofibrous Membrane for DCMD

Polymers (Basel). 2021 Jan 4;13(1):160. doi: 10.3390/polym13010160.

Authors

Asmaa Elrasheedy^{1

2}, Mohammed Rabie^{1

3}, Ahmed El-Shazly^{1

4}, Mohamed Bassyouni^{2

5}, S M S Abdel-Hamid⁶, Marwa F El Kady^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ Chemical and Petrochemicals Engineering Department, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria 21934, Egypt.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Port Said University, Port Said 42526, Egypt.
³ Mechanical Power Engineering, Mansoura University, El-Mansoura 35516, Egypt.
⁴ Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering Department, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21544, Egypt.
⁵ Materials Science Program, Zewail University of Science and Technology, City of Science and Technology, October Gardens, 6th of October, Giza 12578, Egypt.
⁶ Department of Chemical Engineering, the Egyptian Academy for Engineering and Advanced Technology, Affiliated to Ministry of Military Production, Al Salam City 3056, Egypt.
⁷ Polymeric Materials Research Department, City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), Borg El-Arab City, Alexandria 21934, Egypt.

Abstract

The effect of compositing multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with polystyrene (PS) to fabricate nanofibrous membrane by electrospinning technique and comparing the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) performance of the blank and composite membranes is evaluated numerically. Surface morphology of both the pristine and the composite membrane was studied by SEM imaging while the average fiber diameter and average pore size were measured using ImageJ software. Static water contact angle and porosities were also determined for both membranes. Results showed significant enhancement in both the hydrophobicity and porosity of the composite membrane by increasing the static water contact angle from 145.4° for the pristine PS membrane to 155° for the PS/MWCNTs composite membrane while the porosity was increased by 28%. Simulation results showed that at any given feed inlet temperature, the PS/MWCNTs membrane have higher permeate flux and better overall system performance.

Keywords: CFD; DCMD; MD; composite membrane; membrane distillation; numerical investigation.