Fabrication and Testing of Polymeric Membranes for Energy-Efficient Separation of Carbon Dioxide from Flue Gas

One of the major problems the world is facing nowadays is Global Warming. The main ten Green House Gases (GHGs) include water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). The most abundant and dominant greenhouse gas is water vapor but concentration of water vapor depends on temperature and other meteorological conditions, and not directly upon human activities. CO2 is the second-most important one and that is why reduction of CO2 emissions is a vital area of research. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a major strategy that can be used to reduce GHGs emission. CCS divides into three methods: pre-combustion capture, oxy-fuel process, and post-combustion capture. Among them, post-combustion capture is the most important one because it offers flexibility and it can be easily added to the operational units. For CO2 capture, various technologies are used which include: absorption, adsorption, cryogenic distillation, and membrane separation. Our research focuses on one of the technologies for post-combustion capture, which is membrane separation. In this research, we fabricated four samples of polymeric membranes with different proportions of the components and then tested them for thermal stability, tensile strength, selectivity and permeability. The membrane can be modified by trying different mixtures of the forming polymers with different percentages. The separated carbon dioxide gas can be used in different applications like fire extinguishers, carbonated beverages or cooling systems. For the future recommendations finding more applications for the use of the separated carbon dioxide gas will benefit the environment and will make this project more successful. The same techniques could be used to fabricate membranes for purifying the methane gas. Further studies must be done to ensure the effectiveness of these membranes when used in the industry.