Membrane Contactors for Water Carbonation

A theoretical and experimental study made in order to determine the performance of mem-brane contactors in water carbonation is presented. In particular on the basis of experimental results pre-viously obtained it has been derived an expression in which the effect of some parameters as temprera-ture water and CO₂ flow rate CO₂ pressure trans-membrane pressure on the performance of the process is taken into account. The study refers to hollow fiber membrane contactors used for the experimental tests. The main scope has been to verify if by membrane contactors it is possible to reach the same de-gree of water carbonation as by trditional methods (1-5 g/1) and to derive for the module used a cor-relation able to describe the performance of the process at several operating conditions. The high CO₂ removal observed confirms the interesting potentialties of membrane contactors also in gas streams purification.