Computational fluid dynamics comparison of prevalent liquid absorbents for the separation of SO2 acidic pollutant inside a membrane contactor

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, the emission of detrimental acidic pollutants to the atmosphere has raised the concerns of scientists. Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is a harmful greenhouse gas, which its abnormal release to the atmosphere may cause far-ranging environmental and health effects like acid rain and respiratory problems. Therefore, finding promising techniques to alleviate the emission of this greenhouse gas may be of great urgency towards environmental protection. This paper aims to evaluate the potential of three novel absorbents (seawater (H2O), dimethyl aniline (DMA) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to separate SO2 acidic pollutant from SO2/air gaseous stream inside the hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC). To reach this goal, a CFD-based simulation was developed to predict the results. Also, a mathematical model was applied to theoretically evaluate the transport equations in different compartments of contactor. Comparison of the results has implied seawater is the most efficient liquid absorbent for separating SO2. After seawater, NaOH and DMA are placed at the second and third rank (99.36% separation using seawater > 62% separation using NaOH > 55% separation using DMA). Additionally, the influence of operational parameters (i.e., gas and liquid flow rates) and also membrane/module parameters (i.e., length of membrane module, hollow fibers’ number and porosity) on the SO2 separation percentage is investigated as another highlight of this paper.