DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF MEMBRANE BASED GAS SEPARATION PROCESSES IN ASPENPLUS™ FOR CAPTURING CO_2 FROM FLUE GASES

摘要

This paper presents simulation and design aspects of membrane based gas separation processes for capturing CO_2 from industrial flue gases. AspenPlus, a commercial sequential-modular process simulator has been used as a simulation and design tool. Based on a newly developed solution technique for Pan's model for hollow fibre membrane module for multicomponent gas separation, a user unit operation model has been implemented in AspenPlus for membrane module. Countercurrent shell side feed flow and pressured drop inside the fibre bore have been considered for the membrane unit in the present study. Recovery of CO_2 from flue gas stream of a 500MW pulverized coal fired power plant has been considered as a case study. Different membrane gas separation processes have been simulated and designed, and results are presented. This work is a first step to build hybrid processes which consist of membrane and amine/or glycol processes, and to make an economic evaluation of different membrane-based processes.