The present paper investigates the simulation of carbon dioxide removal from natural gas stream by a mixture of three amines of diethanolamine (DEA), methyldiethanolamine (MDEA), and 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP) in a hollow fiber membrane contactor made from polypropylene using finite volume method (FVM)
IntroductionThe development of industrial activities has increasingly elevated the concentration of greenhouse gases in atmosphere during the past decades. The elevation of greenhouse gases gives rise to global warming and environmental issues. Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) adds up to about 80% of the aforementioned gases [1]. Conventional gas adsorption equipment such as packed, bubble and spray columns and scrubbers suffer from drawbacks like the need for large space, high capital costs and operational problems including liquid channeling, flooding, solvent loss, foaming, etc. In contrast membrane contactor technology enjoys the benefits such as, they do not suffer from operational problems; they can be operated over a wide range of flow rates and can be custom designed and modified; also, membrane contactors in form of hollow fiber offer higher surface area 1600-6500 m 2 /m 3 as compared with conventional tray towers or packed columns with 30-330 m 2 /m 3 . Besides, less energy consumption, easy scale up, and independent control of gas and liquid rates are other traits than can characterize them as a capable technology [1,2]. CO 2 removal by membrane contactors has been studied since 1980's and the researchers have investigated factors such as solvent type, membrane material, and modulus type etc. to improve its performance. The membrane contactor technology benefits from both separation processes of membrane and adsorption. Qi and Cussler [3,4] first implemented the idea of hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) application for the adsorption of CO 2 using non-wetted polypropylene membrane with porosity of several micrometres and aqueous sodium hydroxide as the adsorbent. Separation of CO 2 by membrane contactors provides more than 70% and 66% reductions in size and weight and up to 10 times adsorption capacity, respectively, compared to the conventional methods [5]. Gas phase flows in one side of HFMC (tube or shell side) and the liquid adsorbent phase flows in the other side while the two streams are not dispersed within each other. In case of hydrophobic membranes (e.g. polypropylene membranes) the gas-liquid interface forms inside the porous volume in the vicinity of the liquid phase (non-wetted operation) [2] and the gas diffuses in the membrane mostly because of concentration