Numerical simulation and analysis of CO2 removal in a polypropylene hollow fiber membrane contactor

Abstract

This present study shows a comprehensive 2D numerical model for removal of CO2 in a polypropylene (PP) hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. Monoethanolamine (MEA) solution was used as the liquid absorbent in a nonwetting mode. The simulation results represented that higher liquid velocity and concentration and lower gas velocity and concentration led to higher percent of CO2 removal. The most proper parameters for CO2 removal were less than 1 mol m -3 gas concentration and 0.2 m s-1 gas flow rate, and for MEA the values were above 8 mol m-3 concentration and approximately 1 m s-1 liquid velocity. Furthermore, the model was validated with the experiment results. Therefore, the modeling results provided references to the selection of absorbents and operation parameters in the experimental study and pilot-scale applications. © 2014 Zhien Zhang et al.