Modeling and simulation study of oxygen permeation in La0.8Ca0.2Fe0.95O3-δ-Ag hollow fiber membrane module

Abstract Mixed ionic-electronic conducting (MIEC) ceramic membranes present an attractive alternative oxygen separation technology to cryogenic distillation and pressure swing adsorption. The model of Tan and Li has been extensively adopted in the oxygen permeation modeling through MIEC hollow fiber membranes. To evaluate the performance of the La0.8Ca0.2Fe0.95O3-δ-Ag hollow fiber membrane module here, the oxygen permeation is simulated numerically by feeding the air into the shell while passing sweep gas or creating a vacuum in the permeate side under different configuration. The simulation results show that countercurrent flow configuration is preferable in the sweep gas mode given its capability to separate oxygen completely under moderate flow rate of feed air. For vacuum mode, both cocurrent and countercurrent flow configurations result in a similar oxygen permeation performance, which lies between the sweep gas mode with countercurrent and cocurrent flow configurations. When abundant oxygen presence is created in the feed side by elevating its flow rate, the sweep gas mode loses its oxygen separation efficiency and is thus outperformed by the vacuum mode.