Silver-Facilitated Olefin/Paraffin Separation in a Liquid Membrane Contactor System

A review on olefin/paraffin separation using reversible chemical complexation technology

“…While, increases in pressure of receiving side resulted in a slight initial drop in ethylene flux that quickly leveled off to a constant (Fig. 4) [60]. Increasing feed gas pressure shifts the chemical equilibrium on ethylene transport.…”

“…Experiment has shown that the Ag(olefin) 2 + complex does not form in dilute aqueous AgNO 3 [59][60][61][62].…”

“…As the permeation of organic vapors depends on its solubility, the flux increases. Generally a trade-off can be observed, i.e., high flux or high permeability is related to low selectivity and vice versa [42,60,75]. The equilibrium constant between metal ions and olefin of the reaction is strongly dependent on temperatures.…”

“…At high liquid flow rates the ethylene flux is at a maximum and leveled off rapidly. At the plateau region which is limited by diffusion through the membrane wall further increase in liquid flow rate will have little or no effect on ethylene flux [60]. In addition, the mass transfer rate through the liquid membrane is enhanced by the turbulence of the membrane solution flowing through the channel [32].…”

“…In 1994, Tsou et al [60] used a high-pressure polysulfone hollow fiber membrane with a flowing AgNO 3 solution as a carrier to separate a stream of ethylene/ethane. The carrier was circulated through the inner bore of the fiber.…”