Issue 20/2015 - CO2 membrane separator achieves 1,000-hour stable operation

Recently, the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made new progress in the research of CO2 membrane separation technology, and the research team of the Key Laboratory of Low-carbon Transformation Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy has achieved 1000 hours of stable operation
of the 50m3/h membrane separation device in Shanxi Lu'an Mining Group Coal to Liquids Company.
At 3MPa, the CO2 permeability exceeds 10-6mol/(m2·s· Pa), the average selectivity of CO2-H2 exceeds 50, and the performance reaches the level of
the latest international reports.

Relying on the support of the key technologies of efficient CO2 absorption and separation of the "863" project of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the research team carried out the preparation, characterization and application of high-performance molecular sieve membranes in gas separation in view of the high-pressure CO2 capture problem in the modern coal chemical process, and formed a series of complete sets of technologies and process packages
with independent intellectual property rights, such as the preparation and amplification of molecular sieve membranes, the design and optimization of membrane modules, and the design and processing of mold test devices.
Since then, the 1000-hour stable operation
of the CO2 membrane separation device has been realized in Shanxi Lu'an Mining Group Coal to Liquids Company.

China's CO2 emission pressure is huge, and low-cost CO2 capture technology
is urgently needed.
Compared with traditional CO2 capture technology, membrane separation technology has a series of advantages such as low energy consumption, less equipment investment, simple operation and maintenance, and has good industrial application prospects
.
On the basis of in-depth study of the membrane-forming mechanism of molecular sieve membrane, Shanghai Institute of Advanced Research has developed a preparation method of ultra-thin molecular sieve membrane, which greatly reduces the synthesis cost of membrane, and the permeability of the synthesized membrane tube is greatly improved
compared with the current level.
At present, the research team has completed the production scale-up of membrane tubes, and will carry out the design and manufacture
of industrial-scale components.

(Zhong)