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 CO 2 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, CO 2 content of 50% in the permeate and CO 2 permeate flux of ˜5 × 10 −3 cm 3 (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 CO 2 separation performance. Long-term stability was also studied through a test for a duration of 1 week at 90 °C.