Abstract
Commercially available polymeric membrane materials may also show their potential for CO2 capture by the association of the membrane process with other separation techniques in a hybrid system. In the current study, PRISM PA1020/Air Products and UBE UMS-A5 modules with membrane formed of modified polysulfone and polyimide, respectively, were assessed as a second stage in the hybrid vacuum swing adsorption (VSA)–membrane process developed in our laboratory. For this purpose, the module permeances of CO2, N2, and O2 at different temperatures were determined, and the separation of CO2/N2 and CO2/N2/O2 mixtures was investigated in an experimental setup. An appropriate mathematical model was also developed and validated based on experimental data. It was found that both modules can provide CO2-rich gas of the purity of > 95% with virtually the same recovery (40.7−63.6% for maximum carbon dioxide content in permeate) when fed with pre-enriched effluent from the VSA unit. It was also found that this level of purity and recovery was reached at a low feed to permeate the pressure ratio (2−2.5) in both modules. In addition, both modules reveal stable separation performance, and thus, their applicability in a hybrid system depends on investment outlays and will be the subject of optimization investigations, which will be supported by the model presented and validated in this study.
Highlights
The problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is of profound social and scientific importance.The main culprit in provoking climate change is attributed to carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere in various industrial processes and, most notably, by the energy sector
The module permeances (AQi ) of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen determined from single gas experiments in both investigated modules are presented in Tables 1 and 2
Taking into account that we deal with glassy polymers, this may be caused by the net effect of adsorption/diffusion of CO2 in the fractional free volume (FFV)
Summary
The problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is of profound social and scientific importance.The main culprit in provoking climate change is attributed to carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere in various industrial processes and, most notably, by the energy sector. The capture of CO2 may be realized using well-established gas separation techniques, including absorption, adsorption, membrane separation, and cryogenic processes [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. The most mature and commercially attractive techniques are based on absorption. Most of the pilot plants for the capture of CO2 from the flue gas is based on this process. Other techniques are still being considered, taking into account their flexibility, in terms of feed stream specifications and operating conditions, high selectivity of the carbon dioxide vs nitrogen and oxygen, more efficient regeneration as is in the case of adsorption, or even the lack of the regeneration step as is in the case of membranes
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