Membrane-based carbon capture from flue gas: a review

There has been an increasing interest in the application of membranes to flue gas separation, primarily driven by the need of carbon capture for significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, there has not been general consensus about the advantage of membranes against other methods such as liquid solvents for carbon capture. However, recent research indicates that advances in materials and process designs could significantly improve the separation performance of membrane capture systems, which make membrane technology competitive with other technologies for carbon capture. This paper mainly reviews membrane separation for the application to post-combustion CO2 capture with a focus on the developments and breakthroughs in membrane material design, process engineering, and engineering economics.