Abstract

In this work, polysulfone hollow fibers with oxygen permeance 70 L (STP)/(m2·h·bar) and selectivity α(O2/N2) = 6 were obtained. A decrease in the dope solution temperature allowed to diminish macrovoids due to the increase of the dope viscosity from 15.5 Pa·s at 62 °C to 35 Pa·s at 25 °C. To reduce the fiber diameter, thereby increasing the packing density, they were spun at high linear velocities. A hollow fiber membrane element was produced with effective membrane area 2.75 m2 and packing density 53%. Its air separation performance was evaluated to bridge laboratory studies and practical application.

Highlights

  • Membrane air separation is widely accepted as an economic process to produce membrane purity streams containing up to 99.5% nitrogen or 30–50% oxygen [1]

  • For the dope temperature 62 ◦ C, an increase in the take-up speed from 30 to 45 m/min or reduction in the air gap height resulted in the rise of permeance and a decline of the selectivity. This was connected with the decrease of the selective layer thickness and occurred due to the decline of the time spent in the air gap, where volatile THF readily evaporates [22]

  • Spinning parameters to obtain high permeable and defect free polysulfone hollow fibers for gas separation are shown in this work

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Summary

Introduction

Membrane air separation is widely accepted as an economic process to produce membrane purity streams containing up to 99.5% nitrogen or 30–50% oxygen [1]. The companies, such as Ube, Air Liquid, Evonik, Generon, and Air Products, are the biggest manufactures of membrane elements (ME) based on asymmetric hollow fiber for this task. Permeance (P/l) defines the required membrane area, that is, the size and the number of membrane elements and a substantial portion of the capital cost [2].

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