Abstract
Tri-ethylene glycol (TEG) solution is an appropriate solvent for the effective separation of water vapor from the gas stream. In this study, a comprehensive two-dimensional axisymmetric mathematical modeling has been performed for simulation of water absorption into tri-ethylene glycol solution in a hollow fiber membrane contactor. The obtained governing equations for different sections of membrane contactor (tube side, membrane and shell side) along with the proper boundary conditions have been solved with the aid of COMSOL Multiphysics software. The experiment has been conducted to validate the proposed model and confirm the calculated values by the model. The effects of different parameters such as gas flow rate, desiccant solvent flow rate, TEG concentration, flow direction and wetting on membrane performance have been investigated using the model. The experimental data and predicted values are in excellent agreement with an error of only 2%, indicating the validation of CFD model for process simulation. The results reveal that the resistance in the liquid phase is not the limiting factor for this system. Also, membrane wetting by tri-ethylene glycol could decrease the absorption flux significantly.
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