Bio-Mimetic Oxygen Separation Via Hollow Fiber Membrane Contactor With O2 Carrier Solutions
Bio-Mimetic Oxygen Separation Via Hollow Fiber Membrane Contactor With O2 Carrier Solutions
Bio-Mimetic Oxygen Separation Via Hollow Fiber Membrane Contactor With O2 Carrier Solutions
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DOI: 10.1039/c8cc01457d
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A low-cost poly(ethyleneimine)–cobalt (PEI–Co) complex solution with Table 1 State-of-the-art air separation technologies5
high O2 absorption capacity (as high as 1.5 L O2 (STP)/L solution) was
Technology Current status O2 purity limit (vol%)
developed and used in a bio-mimetic system to produce high-purity O2
from air. An oxygen concentration greater than 99.6% was demonstrated. Cryogenic distillation Mature 99+
Pressure swing adsorption Mature 95
Polymeric membranes Mature 40
Oxygen production from air has a wide range of applications in Ionic transport membranes Demonstration 100
oxygen-intensive industries, such as energy production (e.g., oxy-
combustion systems), fuels, chemicals, and other industries.1
Table 1 lists state-of-the-art air separation technologies.2 potential for air separation.7 He observed that the O2 transport
Among these technologies, cryogenic distillation is the most rate in hemoglobin-based liquid membranes was 8 times higher
mature technology for large scale and high purity (499%) O2 than that in pure water, resulting in a maximum of 83% O2 on
production. However, cryogenic distillation-based air separation is the permeate cell. Since then, liquid membranes or facilitated
costly and energy-intensive.1,3,4 Therefore, it is important to membranes with various dissolved O2 carriers have been widely
develop new advanced O2 production technologies with low cost. studied and separation selectivity as high as 40 has been obtained.8
Adsorption processes could provide up to 95% purity O2 (Table 1), These liquid membranes, however, have stability issues; for
but the capital cost increases rapidly with the O2 production rate example, the loss of liquid leads to a decline of separation
compared with cryogenic processes, which limits their application performance, limiting their potential for practical applications.
for large-scale O2 production.1,4 Polymer membrane separation Polymeric membranes, incorporated with O2 carriers, were
processes are simple and more energy efficient, but they cannot developed to address these stability issues.9,10 In these studies,
provide oxygen at high enough purity (495%) required for the concentrations of O2 carriers were low in order to maintain
gasification. Ion transport membranes (ITMs) can produce the good mechanical stabilities of the mixed membranes. Because
almost pure O2 (499%).6 However, materials for the fabrica- the polymer phase itself allowed N2 to permeate through, only a
tion of ITMs are costly. Also, membrane fabrication needs high slight increase in O2/N2 selectivity was observed for the O2 carrier
temperature (41100 1C) and oxygen separation is operated at incorporated polymer membranes.
high temperature (4700 1C), meaning high operating costs. Herein, we report a novel concept to produce high-purity oxygen
Thus, it might be hard for ITMs to compete with cryogenic from air via a hollow fiber membrane contactor with an oxygen
distillation for potential large-scale applications. carrier solution as the solvent. In this concept, as illustrated in
Some of the focus in advanced oxygen separation efforts has Fig. 1, air is sent into a membrane absorber and passes through
been on bio-mimetic processes, such as mimicking hemoglobin. small-diameter membrane tubes (hollow fibers with porous walls),
Hemoglobin is known to be the O2 carrier in blood and is able to while a lean O2 carrier solution flows counter currently on the shell
reversibly bond with O2. In 1960, Scholaner first reported the side of the membrane. The O2 permeates through the membrane
preparation of hemoglobin-based liquid membranes and their pores and is absorbed in the O2 carrier solution.
The O2-rich carrier solution can be regenerated in a second
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, membrane module (desorber) operated in a reverse process.
SC 29208, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
b
In that case, the O2-rich carrier solution is fed to the shell
Gas Technology Institute, 1700 S. Mount Prospect Road, Des Plaines, IL 60018,
USA. E-mail: [email protected]
side of the hollow fibers and the O2 is pulled out from the
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c8cc01457d solvent using vacuum or sweep gas on the bore side of the
‡ These authors contributed equally to this work. hollow fibers.
9454 | Chem. Commun., 2018, 54, 9454--9457 This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018
Communication ChemComm
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018 Chem. Commun., 2018, 54, 9454--9457 | 9455
ChemComm Communication
9456 | Chem. Commun., 2018, 54, 9454--9457 This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018
Communication ChemComm
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018 Chem. Commun., 2018, 54, 9454--9457 | 9457