Abstract
Improving the efficiency of gas separation technology is a challenge facing modern industry, since existing methods for gas separation, including hollow-fiber membrane contactors, vacuum swing adsorption, and cryogenic distillation, represents a significant portion of the world’s energy consumption. Here, we report an enhancement in the release rate of carbon dioxide and oxygen of a thermal swing gas desorption unit using a counter-current amplification method inspired by fish. Differing from a conventional counter-current extraction system, counter-current amplification makes use of parallel capture fluid channels separated by a semipermeable membrane in addition to the semipermeable membrane separating the capture fluid channel and the gas release channel. The membrane separating the incoming and outgoing fluid channels allows gas that would normally exit the system to remain in the desorption unit. We demonstrate the system using both resistive heating and photothermal heating. With resistive heating, an increase in release rate of 240% was observed compared to an equivalent counter-current extraction system.
Highlights
Improving the efficiency of gas separation technology is a challenge facing modern industry, since existing methods for gas separation, including hollow-fiber membrane contactors, vacuum swing adsorption, and cryogenic distillation, represents a significant portion of the world’s energy consumption
A solution high in solute concentration is separated by a semipermeable membrane from a fluid with a low solute concentration flowing in the opposite direction
We observe a 240% increase in gas release rate when comparing a device where gas and heat are allowed to diffuse between adjacent capture fluid channels with a device where no diffusion takes place
Summary
Improving the efficiency of gas separation technology is a challenge facing modern industry, since existing methods for gas separation, including hollow-fiber membrane contactors, vacuum swing adsorption, and cryogenic distillation, represents a significant portion of the world’s energy consumption. We report an enhancement in the release rate of carbon dioxide and oxygen of a thermal swing gas desorption unit using a counter-current amplification method inspired by fish. An increase in release rate of 240% was observed compared to an equivalent counter-current extraction system. Current methods for gas concentration including cryogenic distillation, vacuum swing adsorption, and chemo-selective permeable membranes have each advanced modern industry. For traditional counter-current extraction, the output concentration is limited to the partial pressure of the gas above a bulk phase of the carrier fluid at the release conditions used. The counter-current amplification process produces a higher output concentration for a given release trigger than could be obtained in bulk solution. We fabricate a model counter-current amplifier consisting of a single, looped channel, separated by a gas permeable membrane (Fig. 1b, c). We observe a 240% increase in gas release rate when comparing a device where gas and heat are allowed to diffuse between adjacent capture fluid channels with a device where no diffusion takes place
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