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NIHMIYA ABDUL RAHIM
Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
College of Engineering
Title
Modeling and Experimental Study of Carbon Dioxide Absorption/Stripping in Gas Liquid Membrane Contactor
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Nayef Mohamed Ghasem
Defense Date
6 December 2015
Abstract
Natural gas consists primarily of methane (CH4) but it also contains considerable amounts of contaminating
compounds mainly carbon dioxide (CO2). The presence of CO2 reduces the heating value of the gas
and due to its acidic character causes several operational problems. Hence the removal of CO2 from
natural gas is crucially important. The focus of this research work is to investigate the potential for the
energy efficient and effective separation of CO2/CH4 gas mixture via lean solvent and regenerating of the
rich solvent through absorption/stripping mechanism taking place in a hollow fiber gas liquid membrane
contactor process (GLMC) which combines the advantages of membrane technology with those of
absorbent liquid. In a gas liquid membrane contactor the microporous membrane acts only as an interface
between the gas and liquid phases. In this study primarily polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber
membranes were fabricated via thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) method and the fabricated
membranes were characterized using several membrane characterization techniques in order to optimize
the membrane fabrication conditions. Then the membrane that had optimal performance was used in
GLMC and absorption/stripping experiments were carried out in order to find the optimum operation
window that gives higher absorption/stripping performance. Various absorbent liquids like different amino
acid salts (AAS) and aqueous ammonia solutions were used as absorbent liquid other than conventional
absorption liquids. To improve the stripping performance, enhanced CO2 desorption (based on pH-shift)
was studied. Furthermore, a comprehensive mathematical model of GLMC was developed.
Dissertation