Recycle coal fly ash for preparing tubular ceramic membranes applied in transport membrane condenser

Abstract

Water recovery from flue gas with transport membrane condenser (TMC) has gained much attention in recent years. It has great potential in water conservation and air pollution control. However, effects of porosity and pore size variation of macroporous membranes on TMC application have not been revealed. Coal fly ash (CFA) is used as main raw material to prepare various tubular macroporous ceramic membranes for TMC application. The extrusion method is adopted. Characterization of membranes are conducted for structural parameters evaluation. Prepared membranes were used for TMC application to experimentally study the water and heat recovery performance. Influences of temperatures and flowrates of flue gas and cooling water on recovery performance have been investigated. Increasing cooling water flowrate and flue gas temperature, as well as decreasing cooling water temperature can promote water and heat recovery performance of TMC. The highest water recovery efficiency is 79.21%. Although membrane pore size increasing improves water and recovery, the average pore size should be less than 2 μm to avoid transmembrane gas permeation. Results indicate that CFA membrane is suitable for TMC application and provides investment reduction.