Internal staging for membrane gas separation: comparison with conventional membrane permeators

Abstract

A comparison was made between the performances of an internally staged permeator, a two-stage cascade permeator and a conventional single-stage permeator for the separation of CO2/N2 mixtures. Silicone rubber was used as the membrane material and the separation was investigated experimentally and by simulation. The experimental results obtained from these permeators agree well with theoretical predictions based on perfect mixing models. Simulation studies on both the internally staged permeator and the two-stage cascade indicate that the optimum performance for these two separation schemes can be obtained by properly selecting the stage-cut parameter Eφ{symbol} and stage-pressure parameter Er, which are functions of individual stage cut and intermediate pressure, respectively. Finally, a comparative simulation study of the internally staged permeator with the two-stage cascade and the single-stage permeator was performed and the results are discussed in detail. © 1993.