Development of CO2Selective Poly(Ethylene Oxide)-Based Membranes: From Laboratory to Pilot Plant Scale

Torsten Brinkmann; Jelena Lillep&auml;rg; Heiko Notzke; Jan Pohlmann; Sergey Shishatskiy; Jan Wind; Thorsten Wolff

doi:10.1016/J.ENG.2017.04.004

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Engineering ›› 2017, Vol. 3 ›› Issue (4) : 485-493. DOI: 10.1016/J.ENG.2017.04.004

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Development of CO₂Selective Poly(Ethylene Oxide)-Based Membranes: From Laboratory to Pilot Plant Scale

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Abstract

Membrane gas separation is one of the most promising technologies for the separation of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from various gas streams. One application of this technology is the treatment of flue gases from combustion processes for the purpose of carbon capture and storage. For this application, poly(ethylene oxide)-containing block copolymers such as Pebax^® or PolyActive™ polymer are well suited. The thin-film composite membrane that is considered in this overview employs PolyActive™ polymer as a selective layer material. The membrane shows excellent CO₂ permeances of up to 4 m³(STP)·(m²·h·bar)⁻¹ (1 bar= 10⁵ Pa) at a carbon dioxide/nitrogen (CO₂/N₂) selectivity exceeding 55 at ambient temperature. The membrane can be manufactured reproducibly on a pilot scale and mounted into flat-sheet membrane modules of different designs. The operating performance of these modules can be accurately predicted by specifically developed simulation tools, which employ single-gas permeation data as the only experimental input. The performance of membranes and modules was investigated in different pilot plant studies, in which flue gas and biogas were used as the feed gas streams. The investigated processes showed a stable separation performance, indicating the applicability of PolyActive™ polymer as a membrane material for industrial-scale gas processing.

Keywords

Gas permeation / Thin-film composite membrane / CO₂ separation / Carbon capture and storage / Biogas processing / Membrane modules

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Torsten Brinkmann, Jelena Lillepärg, Heiko Notzke, Jan Pohlmann, Sergey Shishatskiy, Jan Wind, Thorsten Wolff. Development of CO₂ Selective Poly(Ethylene Oxide)-Based Membranes: From Laboratory to Pilot Plant Scale. Engineering, 2017, 3(4): 485‒493 https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ENG.2017.04.004

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Acknowledgements

Groundbreaking work in the initial development of the PolyActive™ multilayer composite membranes was carried out within the scope of the Helmholtz Alliance Mem-Brain funded by the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding given by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy to finance the research project METPORE II (03ET2016). In addition, the authors would like to thank the METPORE II project partners as well as SSC Strategic Science Consult GmbH and BORSIG Membrane Technology GmbH.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Torsten Brinkmann, Jelena Lillepärg, Heiko Notzke, Jan Pohlmann, Sergey Shishatskiy, Jan Wind, and Thorsten Wolff declare that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2017 2017 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier LTD on behalf of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Higher Education Press Limited Company. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).