The effect of contaminants on the composite membranes for CO2 separation and challenges in up-scaling of the membranes

Abstract

The use of membranes for CO2 separation has been considered as a very good alternative to amine absorption thanks to potentially lower cost & process simplicity, energy saving and environmental friendliness. In this work CO2 separation performance of facilitated transport polymer composite membranes developed by MEMFO (membrane research group at NTNU, Norway) is presented together with the effect of contaminants which would be present in real process streams; basically for high pressure natural gas. These facilitated transport membranes where carriers are fixed on polymer show robust CO2 separation performance towards contaminants. There are also many challenges to overcome to develop a membrane successfully for a scaled-up module because many parameters developed for a small lab scale may not apply directly for a larger scale. In this work and presentation, some of the difficulties during scaling-up of the FSC (fixed-site-carrier) membranes are introduced.