Wettability study in CO2 capture from flue gas using nano porous membrane contactors

• A novel method for CFD simulation of CO2 capture using porous membranes.
• Investigations on the effect of solvent type on CO2 removal from flue gas.
• Investigations on the effect of wettability on CO2 mass transfer in membranes.

Wettability of nano porous membrane contactors in exposed to different chemical solvents was studied in this research. The work is conducted using computational simulation of CO2 capture from flue gas in a hollow-fiber membrane module. Computational fluid dynamics method was applied for numerical solution of governing transport equations. Simulations were performed to study CO2 transport through membrane for complete wetting and non-wetting conditions. Simulation results were validated through comparing with the experimental data for CO2 capture using amine aqueous solutions. The simulation results were in consistent with the experimental data. To investigate the influence of solvent on separation performance, six common chemical absorbents including aqueous solutions of diethanolamine, N-methyldiethanolamine, monoethanolamine, 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol, sodium hydroxide, and potassium glycinate were considered in the simulation. The simulation results revealed that the capture of CO2 using aqueous solution of potassium glycinate was the highest among the absorbents.