CFD modeling of the perovskite hollow fiber membrane modules for oxygen separation Bing Feng a , Jian Song a , Zhigang Wang a,b,⇑ , Nikita Dewangan b , Sibudjing Kawi b , Xiaoyao Tan a,⇑ a State Key Laboratory of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin 300387, China b Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, S117585, Singapore highlights  CFD modeling of perovskite hollow fiber membrane modules for oxygen separation.  Operating conditions (temperature, pressure and vacuum) are investigated.  Vacuum is far more effective to improve oxygen permeation than pressurized.  Preheating the air feed is an energy efficiency way to enhance oxygen permeation. article info Article history: Received 13 May 2020 Received in revised form 7 October 2020 Accepted 12 October 2020 Available online xxxx Keywords: Perovskite membrane Hollow fiber module Oxygen separation Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis abstract A 3D model is developed based on the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) method to investigate the behavior of perovskite hollow fiber membrane modules for oxygen separation. The User Defined Functions (UDFs) and FLUENT software are used to calculate simulation results and validated by the experimental data from a La 0.6 Sr 0.4 Co 0.2 Fe 0.8 O 3-d (LSCF) membrane module, which was assembled with 7 hollow fiber membranes. The effect of operating conditions such as preheating air feed, pressurizing air feed, and/or vacuuming has been investigated based on the oxygen permeation rate, temperature, oxygen concentration and gas velocity distribution in the membrane module. The simulation results indi- cate that increasing the vacuum level on the permeate side is far more effective to improve the oxygen separation rate than increasing the pressure on the air feed side. Preheating the air feed with the air efflu- ent or the oxygen product also noticeably enhances the oxygen separation performance of the module. Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction Oxygen production by air separation is of great importance to both environmental and chemical industries. A variety of separa- tion methods have been developed so far for oxygen production including cryogenic distillation, pressure swing adsorption (PSA) or polymeric membrane separation. Although cryogenic distilla- tion and PSA can produce high purified oxygen, the processes are energy intensive. In contrast, polymeric membrane separation can decrease energy consumption but obtaining high purified oxygen is a challenge. In the past decades, extensive studies have been carried out on the ion transport membranes (ITMs), which are mostly perovskite membranes owing to noticeably high permeability and 100% oxygen permselectivity. Hence, the oxygen separation cost can be remarkably reduced by 30~50% compared to the conventional oxygen separation techniques (Armstrong et al., 2005; Dyer et al., 2000; Sunarso et al., 2008). Furthermore, the per- ovskite membranes may be potentially applied to the oxy-fuel combustion for CO 2 capture or served as the membrane reactors for partial oxidation of hydrocarbons into high added-value chem- icals(Bouwmeester, 2003; Deibert et al., 2017; Geffroy et al., 2013; Smart et al., 2010; Yang et al., 2005). Over the past two decades, the perovskite ITM membranes in hollow fiber configuration fabricated by the phase inversion/sin- tering technique have attracted considerable interest due to their larger area/volume ratio and higher oxygen permeation rate than the conventional planar and tubular membranes, making it possi- ble to significantly reduce the membrane system size (Li et al., 2006; Meng et al., 2009; Schiestel et al., 2005; Tan et al., 2011; Tan et al., 2005b; Wang et al., 2008). However, only few studies have been carried out on the perovskite hollow fiber membrane modules because of the inherent brittleness of ceramic membranes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2020.116214 0009-2509/Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. ⇑ Corresponding authors at: State Key Laboratory of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin 300387, China (Z. Wang). E-mail addresses: wangzhigang01@u.nus.edu (Z. Wang), tanxiaoyao@tiangong. edu.cn (X. Tan). Chemical Engineering Science xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemical Engineering Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ces Please cite this article as: B. Feng, J. Song, Z. Wang et al., CFD modeling of the perovskite hollow fiber membrane modules for oxygen separation, Chemical Engineering Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2020.116214