M.M. Ramala, O. Abunumah, E. Gobina
Robert Gordon University,
United Kingdom
Keywords: ceramic membrane, gas, permeation
Summary:
The effect of flow direction in porous ceramic membrane has been extensively studied. Understanding fluid flow through membrane has offered utility to a number of industrial processes such as gas separation, catalytic reactions, enhanced oil recovery, and water purification. In these processes the direction of fluid flow affects the magnitude of certain quantities such as of permeation, injection pressure, pressure gradient and mobility. The extent of this effect has been studied for some gases on an individual basis, however, in this research, common industrial gases (i.e. Air, and Carbon dioxide) have been simultaneously investigated thereby offering an opportunity for a comparatively study of the effect of flow direction on the respective gases. An experimental approach was adopted for the study and series of gas experiments were conducted for Air, and Carbon Dioxides in a radial inorganic ceramic membrane. The membranes are made of multiple layers of pore sizes, such that the most constricted pore size (15, 200 and 6000nm) is coated on the outer layer, while the inner layers are made of larger pore sizes (support). The gases were injected in a normal orientation. The steady state permeation was recorded for operating conditions of 0.2, 0.6, 1.0, 1.4, 1.8, 2.2, 2.6, and 3.00 bar at 20 degrees