Application of a membrane condenser system for ammonia recovery from humid waste gaseous streams at a minimum energy consumption

Abstract

Among the various technologies for the removal and recovery of chemicals from gaseous streams, the membrane condenser (MCo) is proposed and analyzed in this work. In particular, the case of MCo used for the recovery of ammonia at minimum energy consumption is reported. For reaching this aim, three different MCo configurations have been proposed and compared. They differ in the way cooling is achieved: in configuration 1, the feed is cooled via cooling water before entering the membrane module; in configuration 2, a cold sweeping gas cools the feed stream directly inside the membrane module; in configuration 3, the feed is first partially cooled via an external medium and then a sweeping gas is used for the final cooling of the stream. The achieved results indicate configuration 2, among the three different proposed schemes, the one allowing to minimize energy consumption while permitting good water and chemicals recovery.