Field test of a pre-pilot scale hollow fiber facilitated transport membrane for CO2 capture

In this work, a pre-pilot scale hollow fiber membrane module with a PVA/ProK hybrid membrane containing up to 40 wt% amino acid salt was fabricated and tested infield for CO2 capture. The petroleum coke-fired flue gas generated from the rotary kiln provided with a 5-stage cyclone pre-heater tower for the production of grey clinker in the Colacem cement plant in Gubbio (PG), Italy, was used as feed gas after a simple filtration to remove the suspended particulate matter without further pretreatment. The temperature for the membrane test was ranging from 80 to 115 °C. The effects of various parameters including operation temperature, pressure, sweep gas flow rate, vacuum grade, and the impurities in the feed were systematically investigated. Under optimized condition, CO2 content of 50% in the permeate and CO2 permeate flux of ˜5 × 10−3 cm3(STP) cm−2 s−1 were documented, which is comparable with other facilitated transport membranes. The presence of impurities in the feed stream showed a negligible effect on the CO2 separation performance. Long-term stability was also studied through a test for a duration of 1 week at 90 °C