Improvement of the performance of facilitated transport membrane process through nonuniformity

Facilitated transport process has attracted much attention because high selectivity and high permeability may be achieved. However, most research on facilitated transport process is concerned only with uniform membranes. In this paper, a model predicting the gas separation performance of a hollow-fiber module with facilitated transport membrane is developed. The influence of feed rate, operation pressure, and permeant-feed flow pattern on the module performance are analyzed and the effect of the nonuniform distribution of reaction equilibrium constant is examined. The calculated results show that the nonuniform active distribution may cause an improved module performance. Because of the passive transport characteristics of the facilitated transport process, the mass transfer driving force across the membrane has a great influence on the improvement of the module performance through a facilitated transport effect.