SO2 Removal from the flue gas by hollow fibre membrane contactor

Abstract

The combustion of fossils fuels is the main source of the environmental problems, such as acid rain, photochemical smog, and ozone depletion. To solve these problems, the appropriate technology to remove acid gasses such as SO2 is urgently required. In this work, SO2 removal was conducted using polypropylene and polysulfone-based hollow fiber membrane contactors. Water and sodium sulfite were used as sorbents. The results showed that the use of sodium sulfite as a sorbent provided 2 times higher SO2 permeation than water. Moreover, permeate flux of polypropylene membrane was higher than polysulfone membrane since the hydrophobic membrane is more suitable as membrane contactor for flue gas cleaning. In addition, a comparison between membrane contactor and conventional scrubber showed that membrane contactor can reduce the contact volume up to 27 times smaller than those used in the conventional scrubber.