8/10/2019 Engineering Poster Design

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Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Faculty of Bioscience Engineering

Department MS

Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis

Kasteelpark Arenberg 23, B-3001 Heverlee (Leuven), BelgiumLEUVEN

High throughput equipment for membrane based gas separations

Asim Laeeq Khan, Subhankar Basu, Angels Cano-Odena and Ivo F.J Vankelecom*

E-mail: ivo.vankelecom@biw.kuleuven.be; Tel.: (32) 16/32.15.94; Fax: (32) 16/32.19.98

Introduction

High throughput (HT) synthesis and screening is a powerful tool for rapid preparation and processing of a large variety of materials. The discovery process of new materials can indeed

be reduced considerably by their synthesis and performance-testing in a HT way. Such techniques have been used over the years in pharmaceutical and biotechnological research.

Membrane technology is an attractive area for HT exploration. Membranes for gas separation (GS) purposes are typically screened in a standard single gas permeation cell. Mainly due

to the more complicated, hence expensive, on-line analysis, the more interesting mixed gas selectivities are very scarce in literature. High throughput (HT) screening equipment will

allow to screen a large number of membranes in a single run. This study reports the first application of such HT in gas separation (GS). A HT gas separation (HTGS) system was

designed and fabricated, allowing on-line selectivity and permeability analysis of 16 membranes simultaneously with variable mixed gas feeds.

1. HTGS Set-up

3. Rel iabil ity of the HTGS

2. Reproducibi l ity of the set-up

A HTGS setup was designed, aiming at a rapid and accurate

assessment of membrane performance permitting the parallel

screening of 16 membranes.

The reliability of the equipment was tested and compared with the

results obtained with a standard single cell permeation module and

those from an industrial supplier.

The reproducibility of the equipment was tested with a commercial

(PolyAn) and a lab-made PSf membrane. The HTGS results for the

commercial membrane were in excellent agreement with those tested

by conventional single gas permeation cell.

The relative standard deviation of CO2/CH4and CO2/N2separations

was highly encouraging proving the effectiveness of this HTGS

equipment to increase the pace of membrane development byproviding a fast quality check in industrial membrane manufacturing.

4. Conclusions

Table 1 Statistical analysis of permeability and mixed gas selectivity obtained with the HT-module, for (a) PolyAn

membrane and (b) Lab-made PSf membrane

Acknowledgements

Mixed gas permeance and selectivity experiments for the commercial PolyAn membrane at different

feed gas concentrations were compared between the HT and the single cell module. The effect of

different temperatures and pressures was also studied (Fig. 5, 6 and 7).

The reproducibility of HTGS was evaluated by testing commercial PolyAn

(Germany) and lab-made PSf membranes. The lab made membranes were

prepared by phase inversion process using NMP/THF and water as solvents and

non-solvent respectively. The mean, maximum and the minimum values, standarddeviation, and relative standard deviation for each run were analyzed.

Fig 1. Schematic diagram of the HTGS set-up

Fig 4. Sixteen membrane positions

Fig 3. Gas separation module

Fig 2. Various connections to the set-up

CO2/CH4(50/50) CO2/N2(50/50)

Permeance (cm3(STP)/cm2-bar-s) x 10-4 Selectivity Permeance (cm3(STP)/cm2-bar-s) x 10-4 Selectivity

CO2 CH4 CO2 N2

PolyAn

Average 5.26 0.422 12.60 6.40 0.25 24.97

Minimum 4.25 0.32 10.11 5.95 0.25 24.00

Maximum 5.91 0.57 13.29 6.76 0.27 27.57

Standard deviation 0.439 0.0629 0.88 0.204 0.0158 1.05

Relative standard

deviation

8.35 14.90 6.95 3.19 6.14 4.19

PSf membrane

Average 8.61 2.77 3.11 9.74 1.89 5.18

Minimum 8.19 2.43 2.85 9.5 1.8 4.77

Maximum 9.12 3.12 3.57 9.95 2.03 5.49

Standard deviation 0.296 0.194 0.21 0.220 7.07 x 10-6 0.22

Relative standard

deviation

3.44 6.98 6.79 2.26 3.75 4.24

Fig 6. Reproducibility test of

HTGS with

PolyAn membranes.

Both set-ups show a similar decrease in

selectivity by increase in CO2feed concentration.

Operating pressure had no effect on CO2/CH4

selectivity for either equipment.

The decrease in selectivity with temperature was

in the same order of magnitude for HTGS as for the

conventional single cell permeation unit.

Fig 5. Effect of different feed concentration and set-up comparison

Fig 6. Effect of operating temperature Fig 7. Effect of operating pressure

The authors wish to thank MIP-project, I.A.P.-P.A.I. and G.O.A grants,

Departament dUniversitats,Recerca i Societat de la Informaci (DURSI)

Generalitat de Catalunya, K.U.Leuven for support in the frame of the

CECAT excellence and the Flemish Government for the Methusalem

funding and the Federal Government for an IPA grant.