STUDY OF PRESSURE AND COMPOSITION EFFECT ON MULTICOMPONENT MEMBRANE SEPARATION INVOLVING HEAVY HYDROCARBON GAS PENTANE

This work study the performance and characterize polyimide hollow fiber membranes for the separation of CO2-CH- C5H12 at difference pressure and feed composition as well as the effect of heavy hydrocarbon gas C5H12 on membrane performance. In Malaysia, approximately 13 trillion ft³ of high CO2 natural gas field are uneconomical to be developed. Development of high CO2 gas fields requires prudent management of carbon dioxide capture, transportation, and storage to enable commercialization of these fields. Research conducted on CO2 separation using membrane is limited especially on multicomponent and involving heavy hydrocarbon gas. Scope of experimental study focus on pure gas, gas mixture with and without heavy hydrocarbon gas C5H12 as well as varies the feed pressure from 10 bar to 18 bar and CO2 feed composition from 10% to 90%. Research methodologies include fabrication of membrane module, membrane characterization using FTIR, FESEM, and performances testing with CO2SMU and GC. FTIR finding show that membrane matrix’s polar sites enhance the preferential interaction and solubility of CO2 gas molecules, resulting in higher CO2 permeates flow compare to CH4 & C5H12. Decrease in flux, permeance and CO2 relative permeance is observed in gas mixture feed especially with present of heavy hydrocarbon gas C5H12. C5H12. As feed pressure increase, driving force increase preferentially sorbed of CO2 gas increase CO2 flux significantly, while CH4 and C5H12 flux only increase marginally. Furthermore, membrane layer compaction and plasticization increase CO2 permeance and relative permeance. As CO2 feed composition increase, membrane plasticize more, increasing preferentially sorbed of CO2 gas at matrix’s polar sites, thus increasing CO2 flux and permeance while, CH4 and C5H12 flux and permeance remain constant. So, CO2 relative permeance increases. In the nutshell, polyimide hollow fiber membranes show promising performance for separation of CO2-CH- C5H12 and experimental findings can be used for Multicomponent Hollow Fiber Membrane Module Performance Prediction Program (HFM3P).