A comparative method for estimating the membrane mass transfer resistance of a ceramic hollow fiber membrane contactor using a Wetted‐Wall Column

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiec.2021.04.009Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Relative membrane mass transfer resistance was estimated by comparative method.

  • Wetted-Wall Column (WWC) was used as an internal reference.

  • The method was tested on different ad-hoc ceramic hollow fiber membrane contactors.

  • Relative membrane mass transfer resistance was related to pore structure changes.

  • The proposed comparative method is developed to obtain a simple screening tool.

Abstract

In this study, an experimental method for estimating the relative membrane mass transfer resistance (RmHFMC) by comparing the results obtained using a ceramic hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) with those obtained using a wetted-wall column (WWC) was proposed. The method was successfully applied for the determination of the optimal pore structure to increase the CO2 absorption. To find a relationship between relative RmHFMC in the ceramic HFMCs and its pore characteristics, the method was tested on two ceramic HFMCs prepared by non-solvent induced phase separation method. The pore structures were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, capillary flow porometry, and gas permeability measurements. The results obtained show that the relative RmHFMC contribution ranged from ∼90 to ∼27% of the overall mass transfer resistance (RoHFMC) and was related to the variation of the pore structure properties. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to estimate the relative RmHFMC element of the ceramic HFMC through an experimental comparison with a WWC performed in the same experimental conditions. The proposed method is expected to provide a practical solution for estimating the relative RmHFMC of the ceramic HFMCs.

Introduction

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a technology for the capture and safe storage of CO2 [1], [2]. Research into hollow fiber membrane contactors (HFMC) has recently been conducted to increase the CO2 absorber efficiency [3]. HFMC is an advanced device in which the packing material of the absorption column is replaced by a hollow fiber membrane module. It is important to highlight that a large phase contact area through the membrane pores is the key factor providing high efficiency of ceramic HFMCs compared to conventional absorption processes [4]. The main advantages are that not only the gas and absorbent can be independently increased to reach high productivities but also high membrane areas per unit volume of the membrane module and high self-mechanical supports are achievable [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. However, since the thin ceramic hollow fiber membrane can be broken with mechanical force, its thickness and outer diameter are generally larger than that of the common polymeric membrane and this means that, in turn, the overall mass transfer resistance (Ro) associated with the ceramic HFMC is more important than the polymeric HFMC. It is of particular importance to quantify and then reduce the Ro of the CO2 absorption process by optimizing the micro-structures (i.e., pore structure) of the ceramic HFMC [5], [6], [9]. One of the aims of the investigation was to estimate the resistance contributions to the overall CO2 absorption process of ceramic HFMCs by experimental comparison with a wetted-wall column (WWC). The novelty of this work is that we suggest a new comparative method to study the ceramic HFMC utilizing a simple WWC, as will be described in detail in the next section.

Section snippets

Theory and methodology

The overall mass transfer coefficient (Ko) was defined as follows [11], [12]:Ko=Qgas(Cgas,in-Cgas,out)ATΔPgas,avwhere Qgas, Cgas,in, and Cgas,out are the gas volumetric flow rate, the concentration of CO2 in the inlet gas phase, and the outlet gas phase, respectively. AT is the mass-transfer area based on the surface area of gas-liquid contact and ΔPgas,av is the mean pressure difference of CO2 in the gas phase. The overall mass transfer resistance (R0) is defined, in turn, as inversely

Fabrication of two different hydrophobic ceramic hollow fiber membranes

Alumina powder was purchased from Kceracell Co. Ltd., Korea (99.9% α-Al2O3; average particle size: 0.5 μm; BET specific surface area: 6.4 m2/g; Model number LSC-235C). 1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP, 99.5%, Sanchun Pure Chemical Co. Ltd., Korea) was used as a solvent for preparing the dope solution. Polyethersulfone (PESf, Ultrason® E6020P, BASF, Germany) was used as a binder. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP, Sigma Aldrich, USA) was used to prepare a homogeneous spinning dope solution.

The reagents were

Characterization of ceramic HFMCs

Fig. 3 shows the SEM images at different magnifications for the ceramic hollow fiber membranes prepared by the non-solvent induced phase separation method. It is observed that both membranes consist of three layers of different morphologies arranged concentrically, namely: 1) finger-like pore layer on the inner side, 2) intermediate sponge-like layer, and 3) lumen-side finger-like pore layer. Keeping all the other variables constant, the obtained morphology is strongly dependent on the internal

Conclusions

Based on the resistance-in-series model, we described a novel experimental method for estimating the relative membrane mass transfer resistance (RmHFMC) of ceramic hollow fiber membrane contactors (HFMC). In this work, the relative RmHFMC contribution expressed as a percentage of the overall mass transfer resistance (RoHFMC) can be determined experimentally by a comparative method using a wetted-wall column (WWC) performed in the same configuration and experimental conditions of the tested

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Research and Development Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (C1-2428-01). E. Magnone and H.J. Lee should be considered co-first authors.

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