Development of adsorbent hollow fiber for CO2 application

Abstract

The overall objective of the project is to screen an efficient adsorbent for adsorption/separation of CO2 from industries by using a novel adsorbent hollow fiber material. In the design of an adsorption based CO2 adsorption device, the choice of the adsorbent is the most crucial design consideration. In this paper, several CO2 selective adsorbents will be trialed and the adsorbent hollow fibers will be prepared and tested in order to optimize robustness/integrity and selectivity. These adsorbent hollow fibers are light, could be as small as 0.5 mm to 3 mm in diameter. It is ideal as fiber cartridges for CO2 removal from enclosed spaces, because of their small dimension, and the open finger-like structure giving ready diffusion of small CO2 molecules and the high surface-to-volume ratio that can be achieved (>3000 m2/m3). The open finger-like structure in the adsorbent hollow fibers provides more accessibility for the adsorbate molecules to reach the adsorption sites and hence gives better kinetic performance. The results show that an adsorbent hollow fiber module has a far sharper breakthrough curves and longer times to breakthrough for CO2, than for equivalent beds of pellets, and the 13X hollow fibers have a superior performance for the adsorption of CO2 over the other hollow fibers. This means that the adsorbent hollow fibers with the advantages of higher surface-to-volume ratio, low pressure drop and low mass transfer resistance give great potential on CO2 adsorption and further environmental applications.