Air separation by integrally asymmetric hollow-fiber membranes

Abstract

Integrally asymmetric hollow-fiber membranes each with an outer skin layer and a porous substrate were studied for air separation to produce nitrogen and oxygen enriched air. The test on both bore-side feed and shell-side feed with cocurrent and countercurrent flow arrangements for a wide range of stage cuts shows that the bore-side feed countercurrent flow was the most advantageous configuration in the permeator design. When operated in the bore-side feed countercurrent configuration, the permeator performance compared favorably with the commercial systems available for nitrogen production. A mathematical model was developed for this configuration. Since the concentration polarization in the substrate was a major concern for the bore-side feed configuration, especially for high stage-cut operations, a theoretical approach was pursued to formulate the concentration polarization. This allows for the diagnosis of the significance of concentration polarization in a specific permeation process, although it is difficult to predict concentration polarization accurately due to limited knowledge of the detailed membrane structure.