Experimental and simulation study of a novel hybrid absorption and stripping membrane contactor for carbon capture

Abstract Physical absorption is a commercial technology for the capture of high concentration carbon dioxide and features low energy requirement for solvent regeneration. The application of physical absorption for the capture of low concentration carbon dioxide from fossil fuel power plants requires improvement in the absorption efficiency. A novel hybrid absorption/stripping membrane contactor (HASMC) with parallel and contiguous configurations is proposed and studied for carbon dioxide absorption by propylene carbonate. Employing parallel-type and contiguous-type HASMCs, the experimental results show substantial enhancement of absorption flux relative to pure absorption operation with an enhancement factor of 1.16–1.61 and 1.55–2.21, respectively. Simulation work reveals the concentration boundary layers in the liquid channel and explains the mechanisms of absorption enhancement for both configurations. Both experimental and simulation results show increase of absorption flux with the increase of liquid velocity, flue gas velocity and flue gas carbon dioxide concentration. This study has shown that HASMCs with contiguous configuration can be high efficiency membrane contactors.