1992 Volume 18 Issue 6 Pages 804-812
We have conducted a series of basic experiments in CO2 removal from the flue gas of a thermal power plant by use of hollow-fiber gas-liquid contactors. The results indicated that microporous membranes are suitable for the CO2-MEA (monoethanolamine) system because the overall mass transfer coefficient K of the membrane is approximately 10 times that of composite membranes consisting of microporous membranes and homogeneous membrane. The value of K for the CO2-MEA system could be theoretically estimated by the theory of mass transfer with chemical reaction in the hollow-fiber contactor when there is no wetting of the microporous membrane. Due to the high hydrophobicity of teflon membrane, it is not subjected to wetting when used in the CO2-MEA system. This was confirmed by approximately 4000 hours of continuous treatment testing. The overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient Ka of the hollow-fiber contactor is more than five times larger than that of a conventional packed bed, which suggests that adoption of the present method has the advantage of making the absorber more compact.
