Preliminary study of wet-free CO2 absorption through membrane diffuser

Abstract

Wetting phenomenon is major drawback of membrane contactor in CO2 absorption which limits the performance stability. In this study, hollow fiber membrane diffuser was proposed for providing wet-free gas absorption. The performance of membrane diffuser as function of operating pressure (0.5-3.0 bar), membrane hydrophobicity (hydrophobic and superhydrophobic polypropylene membrane), and membrane type (polypropylene and polysulfone) was investigated. Result shows that CO2 concentration in absorbent increases with operating pressure. Superhydrophobic polypropylene membrane exhibits higher CO2 transfer than the hydrophobic membrane. Meanwhile, the CO2 absorption by PSf membrane is relatively low.