Modeling of mild fractionation of suspensions

For many food streams the indivudual components can be more valuable than the food stream itself. One of the techniques to separate, or fractionate, the components is membrane microfiltration. Often this method is considered mild. However, the membrane fouling reduces the performance and requires use of chemical cleaning. Use of well-defined fluid flow might be able to reduce the fouling by keeping particles away from the membrane. To gain understanding of the underlying physics and to come to process design the flow of mono- and bidipserse suspension is modeled. The resulting model provides a generic framework applicable to soft matter. The interaction between the fluid and the particles is incorporated by use of an effective temperature including Brownian motion and shear-induced diffusion. Simulations of flow through a channel and above a membrane are performed and compare well to experiments.