Computer Modelling Of Multicomponent Gas Separation By Membranes

Abstract

Gas separation using membrane is now an established unit operation in the chemical process industry. The performance of a single stage membrane permeator depends, among other things, on the feed and permeate flow pattern. In this paper, models for five different idealized flow patterns namely cocurrent flow, countercurrent flow, cross flow, perfect mixing and on-side mixing have been presented. A computer program written in Power Basic has also been developed. The models developed can be used for a binary mixture or multi-component gas feed system. A simple bisection method is used instead of the Newton iterative method originally suggested by Shindo et.al.[6] to solve the root finding-problem in order to ensure convergence. In this study countercurrent flow is found to be the most efficient flow pattern, giving the highest degree of separation and requiring the least membrane area.