Combination of Adsorption-Diffusion Model with Computational Fluid Dynamics for Simulation of a Tubular Membrane Made from SAPO-34 Thin Layer Supported by Stainless Steel for Separation of CO₂ from CH₄
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Fatemeh Sadat Banitaba, Zahra Mansourpour and Shohreh Fatemi

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000/1929-6037.2016.05.01.2

Published: 06 April 2016 

Abstract: Modeling of CO₂/CH₄ separation using SAPO-34 tubular membrane was performed by computational fluid dynamics. The Maxwell-Stefan equations and Langmuir isotherms were used to describe the permeate flux through the membrane and the adsorption-diffusion, respectively. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes momentum balances in feed and permeate side coupled with adsorption-diffusion equations from the membrane were simultaneously solved by ANSYS FLUENT software. The velocity and concentration profiles were determined in both feed and permeate sides. There was a good agreement between simulation and experimental results and root mean square deviation for CH₄ and CO₂ are 0.13 and 0.1 (mmol m^-2 s^-1), respectively. The concentration polarization effect was observed in the results. The effect of the process variables were investigated to find out the most influential parameters in permeation and purity. The impact of operating conditions on separation were studied and showed that for enhancement of separation efficiency of CO₂ from CH₄, feed pressure, feed flow rate and tube radius and number of membrane modules in series should be increased, whereas flow configuration has less significant effect.

Keywords: Computational fluid dynamic, tubular zeolite membrane, CO₂/CH₄ separation, SAPO-34, Adsorption-diffusion mechanismv.

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