Study on the effect of process parameters on CO2/CH4 binary gas separation performance over NH2-MIL-53(Al)/cellulose acetate hollow fiber mixed matrix membrane.

The aim of current work is to study the interaction of process parameters including, temperature, CO 2 feed composition and feed pressure were towards CO 2 separation from CO 2 /CH 4 binary gas mixture over hollow fiber mixed matrix membrane using design of experiment (DoE) approach. The hollow fiber mixed matrix membrane (HFMMM) containing NH 2 -MIL-53(Al) filler and cellulose acetate polymer was successfully spun and fibers with outer diameter of approximately 250–290 nm were obtained. The separation results revealed that the increment of temperature from 30 °C to 50 °C reduced the CO 2 /CH 4 separation factor while, increasing feed pressure from 3 bar to 15 and increment of CO 2 feed composition from 15 to 42.5 vol% increased the separation factor of HFMMM. The DoE results showed that the feed pressure was the most significant process parameter that intensely affected the CH 4 permeance, CO 2 permeance and CO 2 /CH 4 separation factor. Based on the experimental results obtained, maximum CO 2 permeance of 3.82 GPU was achieved at feed pressure of 3 bar, temperature of 50 °C and CO 2 feed composition of 70 vol%. Meanwhile, minimum CH 4 permeance of 0.01 GPU was obtained at feed pressure of 15 bar and temperature of 30 °C and CO 2 feed composition of 70 vol%. Besides, maximum CO 2 /CH 4 separation factor of 14.4 was achieved at feed pressure of 15 bar and temperature of 30 °C and CO 2 feed composition of 15 vol%. Overall, the study on the interaction between separation processes parameters using central composite design (CCD) coupled with response surface methodology (RSM) possesses significant importance prior to the application of NH 2 -MIL-53(Al)/Cellulose Acetate HFMMM at industrial scale of natural gas purification. Image 1 • Interaction of process parameters on CO 2 /CH 4 binary gas separation performance over cellulose acetate based HFMMM. • CCD-RSM method is used to investigate the interaction of separation process parameters over the HFMMM. • Increment in feed pressure increased CO 2 /CH 4 separation factor from 4.2 to 14.4. • Maximum CO 2 /CH 4 separation factor of 14.4 was achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]