Abstract—A mathematical analysis was performed on an
acid-gas removal process applied to an aqueous feed stream
using a hollow fiber membrane contactor in liquid-liquid
extraction mode. Furthermore, a comparison was made
between the obtained simulation results and with the earlier
published experimental results. The model development is
based on a process setup wherein synthetic wastewater feed
solution was considered to be passing through the lumen side
and later recycled back to the feed tank. On the shell side of the
membrane contactor, an extractant was circulated in the
counter direction. The model is developed considering radial
and axial diffusion mechanisms and convection on the lumen
side. Mass transfer across the pore by diffusion from Knudsen
and bulk flow has also been considered. The partial differential
equations obtained, were solved by converting them into a
number of ordinary differential equations by using the finite
difference method. The model was solved and simulated using
MATLAB. The effect of various membrane contactor
parameters such as the number of fibers and their effective
lengths on the removal of gases have also been studied in this
analysis. The simulated results obtained were observed to be in
excellent agreement with the experimental results obtained for
the acidic gas, H
2S.
Index Terms—Waste water treatment, membrane separation,
hollow fiber membrane contactor, degasification of water,
modeling and simulation.
The authors are with the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT
Kanpur-208016 India (email: ashurawt@iitk.ac.in, gunjan@iitk.ac.in,
pniharika23@gmail.com, pkbhatta@iitk.ac.in).
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Cite:Ashutosh Rawat, Gunjan K. Agrahari, Niharika Pandey, and Prashant K. Bhattacharya, "Mathematical Analysis of Removal of Dissolved Acidic
Gases from Aqueous Stream Using Membrane Contactor," International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 290-294, 2013.
