Effect of liquid flow on the separation of propylene/propane mixtures with a gas/liquid membrane contactor using Ag+-RTIL solutions

Industrial olefin/paraffin separations heavily rely upon energy intensive distillation-based technologies, which represent a class of the most important and also the most costly processes in the chemical industry. The method of olefin/paraffin separations certainly holds an enormous potential for capital and energy cost savings if a more efficient technique is developed. A module containing a microporous hydrophobic membrane has been assessed for their capability in the selective removal of propylene from a gas mixture with propane. A study of mass transfer in the membrane module indicates that the overall mass transfer coefficients, K-overall, are dominated by the individual coefficients in the liquid film, k(L). A model based on the resistance-in-series model and Sherwood correlations could describe this phenomenon.