An experimental study of membranes for capturing water vapor from flue gas

Abstract This paper has made an active attempt on recovering water from flue gas using membranes. The properties of SPEEK/PES, a hydrophilic composite hollow fiber membrane, are studied in the present paper using experimental analyses of thermal gravimetric, differential scanning calorimetry and scanning electron micrograph. Experimental results show that SPEEK/PES composite hollow fiber membranes have excellent thermal stability and mechanical properties in flue gas. An experiment with using simulated flue gas (N 2 /water vapor mixed) is carried out to study the impact of sweep gas flow rate and feed gas temperature on the membrane module properties. The results indicate that the water recovery rate increases with the temperature increasing from 40 °C to 70 °C. The application of capturing the water in flue gas is very attractive, and it will provide a new way of saving energy and alleviating the haze.