Further studies in hollow fiber contained liquid membrane separation of gas and liquid mixtures

This study focuses on the separation of liquid solutions and gas mixtures using the hollow fiber contained liquid membrane (HFCLM). The HFCLM concept was applied to the separation of an organic liquid mixture using a technique called perstraction. In gas separation, the HFCLM concept was extended to the separation of high pressure gaseous mixtures using silicone coated microporous hollow fibers on either the permeate side or both feed and the permeate sides.; The effectiveness of perstraction separation of a 2 vol% i-propanol-n-heptane mixture using dodecane as the strip liquid has been studied. The liquid membranes used were pure water and 3 wt% water in sulfolane. Both liquid membranes yielded similar mass transfer coefficients and i-propanol removal rates. Pure water, however, exhibited three times higher selectivity towards i-propanol than 3 wt% water-sulfolane. A first order mathematical model was developed using partition coefficients that are functions of the solute concentration and it predicts the observed behavior of the two systems relatively well.; The second part of this study focuses on the separation of CO{dollar}sb2{dollar}-N{dollar}sb2{dollar} mixtures using a HFCLM permeator. For these studies, pure water and 20% aqueous solution of diethanolamine (DEA) were used as liquid membranes. The 20% aqueous solution of DEA resulted in significantly higher overall CO{dollar}sb2{dollar} permeabilities and selectivity. The behavior of two modes of operation, conventional polymeric permeation and sweep gas mode were also analyzed. Further, the conditions in which the liquid membrane pressure is higher than the feed pressure and vice-versa were studied. A mathematical model was developed which included the pressure drop inside the fiber bores. Numerical simulations of the model described the experimental results well.