A review of material development in the field of carbon capture and the application of membrane-based processes in power plants and energy-intensive industries

Abstract

This review highlights recent developments and future perspectives on CO 2 capture from power plants and energyintensive industries to reduce CO 2 emissions. Different types of membrane materials for CO 2 capture were reviewed in terms of material performance, energy efficiency, and cost. With regard to gas separation membrane technology, only three types of membranes have been demonstrated at pilot scale. Therefore, this work paid particular attention to recent development of membrane materials such as fixed-site-carrier membranes and ultrathin nanocomposite membranes. The required high-performance membranes with CO 2 permeance of 3 m 3 (STP)/ (m 2 h bar) and high CO 2 /N 2 selectivity (> 40) were identified as the future direction of material development. Moreover, novel energy-efficient process development for CO 2 capture in power plant and process industry are discussed; the MTR patented air sweeping process is considered one of the most energy-efficient processes for post-combustion CO 2 capture. In the last part, CO 2 /CH 4 selectivity of > 30 was pointed out to be the requirement of energy-efficient membrane system for CO 2 removal from natural gas and biogas. Finally, significant improvements on membrane material performance, module, and process efficiency are still needed for membrane technology to be competitive in CO 2 capture.

Amine-based capture of CO2 for utilization and storage

“…As mentioned previously, a polymeric membrane system was installed in a large-scale CCS facility in 2013 [27,30,32]. In addition, several projects using amine-based polymeric membrane systems for CO 2 separation are in the pilot phase [82][83][84].…”

“…In addition to CCS, polymeric membrane systems have been commercialized for natural gas sweetening, although they only occupy 5% of the market today [83]. Membranes for natural gas sweetening are usually made from cellulose acetate and polyimide, which typically show a CO 2 /CH 4 selectivity of 15−30.…”

“…3, CO 2 will pass through the polymer layer based on both solution diffusion and carrier-mediated diffusion, while other gases, such as nitrogen (N 2 ), O 2 , CH 4 , and H 2 , can only pass through via a solution-diffusion mechanism. A thin selective polymer layer, high diffusion coefficient, and steep gradient of carrier concentrations across the polymer will positively affect the CO 2 permeate flux, while low solubilities and diffusion coefficients for other gases in the polymer will lead to high selectivity for For such facilitated transport membranes, poly(amidoamine), poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), polyallylamine (PAA), and polyvinyl amine (PVAm) are often applied as selective layers with/without amine additives [48,83].…”

110th Anniversary: Process Developments in Carbon Dioxide Capture Using Membrane Technology

“…[38]. However, these type of membranes usually rely on the reactivity of amine groups [39] and these can be poisoned by SO2 concentrations in the flue gas, which reduces performance over time [40].…”

Flue gas purification with membranes based on the polymer of intrinsic microporosity PIM-TMN-Trip

“…That is why the effort of many research teams is still put into the development of membrane materials with better transport properties, in particular higher permeability. There are several promising new directions in membrane science for gas separation, such as the use of mixed-matrix membranes, or ionic liquid supported membranes, aiming to improve their separation performance and transport properties [17,18]. For the homogenous polymeric materials, it has been suggested by theoretical analysis that successful membranes need to be based on rigid polymers [19]: "(polymer) backbone stiffness increases should be coupled with increases in interchain separation to achieve both higher permeability and higher selectivity".…”