Soybean and moringa based green biosolvents for low-concentration CO2 capture via a hollow fiber membrane contactor

Abstract

Soybean and moringa based green biosolvents were employed for low-concentration CO2 capture via a super-hydrophobic PVDF/Si-R hollow fiber membrane contactor from flue gas. The performance of the hollow fiber membrane contactor was examined in terms of CO2 absorption flux, CO2 absorption efficiency, and CO2 absorption capacity with varied biosolvent concentration, biosolvent flow rate, and feed gas flow rate. In the presence of soybean based CO2 biosolvent, the CO2 absorption flux and CO2 absorption efficiency reached 0.52 mol.m−2.h−1 and 97% for the hollow fiber membrane contactor, respectively. The results showed that the CO2 absorption flux and CO2 absorption efficiency were affected more by concentration and flow rate of the soybean based biosolvent, but less by the feed gas flow rate. The biosolvent concentration exhibited the most significant effect on the CO2 absorption capacity. It was also revealed that the components interactions in the soybean based biosolvent affect the performance of the membrane contactor. The optimal biosolvent concentration, biosolvent flow rate and gas feed rate was 1.0 M, 0.5 ml/min, and 15 ml/min, respectively. Both soybean and moringa based biosolvents exhibited comparable CO2 absorption flux to the conventional solvent of monoethanolamine (MEA).