Membrane Cascade Type of «Continuous Membrane Column¼ for Power Plant Post-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Part 1: Simulation of the Binary Gas Mixture Separation.

The present paper deals with the complex study of CO2 capture from combined heat power plant flue gases using the efficient technological design of a membrane cascade type of «Continuous Membrane Column¼ for binary gas mixture separation. In contrast to well-known multi-step or multi-stage process designs, the cascade type of separation unit provides several advantages. Here, the separation process is implemented in it by creating two counter current flows. In one of them is depleted by the high-permeable component in a continuous mode, meanwhile the other one is enriched. Taking into account that the circulating flows rate overcomes the withdrawn one, there is a multiplicative increase in separation efficiency. A comprehensive study of CO2 capture using the membrane cascade type of «Continuous Membrane Column¼ includes the determination of the optimal membrane material characteristics, the sensitivity study of the process, and a feasibility evaluation. It was clearly demonstrated that the proposed process achieves efficient CO2 capture, which meets the modern requirements in terms of the CO2 content (≥95 mol.%), recovery rate (≥90%), and residual CO2 concentration (≤2 mol.%). Moreover, it was observed that it is possible to process CO2 with a purity of up to 99.8 mol.% at the same recovery rate. This enables the use of this specific process design in CO2 pretreatment operations for the production of high-purity carbon dioxide.

An Efficient Technique for Ammonia Capture in the Haber-Bosch Process Loop-Membrane-Assisted Gas Absorption.

The present study continues the development and enhancement of a highly efficient unique hybrid technique-membrane-assisted gas absorption in designing the separation unit, which provides the improvement in mass-transfer of a target component during the ammonia capture process from a process loop of the Haber-Bosch technological route. In order to minimize the absorbent volume to membrane area ratio, the special separation cell was designed based on a combination of two types of hollow fiber membranes, dense gas separation membrane and porous pervaporation membrane. The separation performance tests were implemented under two sets of conditions, sweeping the bore (permeate) side of a cell with helium and hydrogen-nitrogen mix. For both cases, the membrane-assisted gas absorption cell demonstrated high separation efficiency, and the ammonia concentration in the permeate was never lower than 81 mol%; meanwhile, under the hydrogen-nitrogen bore sweep conditions, the ammonia concentration in the permeate reached 97.5 mol% in a single-step process. Nevertheless, there is a product purity-recovery rate trade-off, which is a typical issue for separation processes.