A hollow fiber membrane contactor was modeled to find the ideal conditions for removing CO2 from natural gas. The effects of liquid flow rate, gas flow rate, and absorbent concentration were studied for three different absorbents (ethylenediamine, monoethanolamine, and piperazine). In general, using piperazine as absorbent resulted in the highest CO2 capture efficiency across all investigations.
Abstract
This study examined essential factors in the use of hollow fiber membranes that affect CO2 removal efficiency. In the simulation, a finite element model for a membrane with ten fibers was used. Each fiber is 175 mm long with inner radius of 0.75 mm and outer radius of 1.5 mm. Liquid and gas flow rates were set at 100–800 mL min−1, and adsorbent concentration was adjusted in the range of 200–1500 mol m−3 for monoethanolamine, piperazine (PZ), and ethylenediamine absorbents. Increasing the liquid flow rate, gas flow rate, and absorbent concentration leads to an increase, decrease, and increase in efficiency, respectively. Thus, using PZ as absorbent with a concentration of 1080 mol m−3 liquid and gas flow rates of 400 and 180 mL min−1, respectively, showed a CO2 removal efficiency of > 95 % for a membrane effective length of 0.3 m.