Mass transfer performance and correlation for CO2 absorption into aqueous 3-diethylaminopropylamine solution in a hollow fiber membrane contactor

Abstract

3-Diethylaminopropylamine (DEAPA), a diamine with high reaction rate and large absorption capacity, was investigated in this work to evaluate its CO2 absorption mass transfer performance in a hollow fiber membrane contactor in terms of the CO2 absorption flux (JCO2). A series of experiments were conducted at various operation conditions and the effects of several influential parameters on JCO2 were examined and discussed in detail, including the liquid flow rate, the inlet gas flow rate, amine concentration, feed liquid temperature, CO2 partial pressure, lean CO2 loading, and membrane contactor height. Experimental results indicated that lean CO2 loading and membrane contactor height have negative effect on the total mass transfer performance since the value of JCO2 decreases with the increase of these two factors, while the other five parameters exhibit positive effect and their increase lead to the increase of JCO2 values. In addition, a numerical correlation was established to predict the overall gas phase mass transfer coefficient and the CO2 absorption flux, and the average absolute deviation (AAD) is 6.84%.