Absorption of CO2 into Aqueous Solutions of Methyldiethanolamine and Activated Methyldiethanolamine from a Gas Mixture in a Hollow Fiber Contactor

Abstract

A membrane gas absorption (MGA) process was evaluated in this work for CO2 capture from CO2/N2 gas-mixed streams at room temperature. The experimental study of a polypropylene (PP) hollow fiber membrane contactor in combination with the technique of CO2 absorption into aqueous solutions of activated methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) and MDEA as absorbents was carried out. A laboratory-scale setup, in which the solution with CO2 loading was able to be hot-regenerated into the solution without CO2 loading and used circularly, was established in this study. The effects of a variety of operation factors, such as gas and liquid flow rates, membrane pore-wetting, and liquid CO2 loading, on the separation performance of the membrane contactor were investigated. The absorption performances were compared between activated MDEA and MDEA. A mathematical model was developed to simulate the mass-transfer behavior of the membrane gas−liquid contactor. The experimental results show that the use of a membrane gas−liquid contac...