• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.35-50
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• 2017

The theoretical membrane gas absorption module treatments in a hollow fiber gas-liquid membrane contactor using Happel's free surface model were obtained under countercurrent-flow operations. The analytical solutions were obtained using the separated variable method with an orthogonal expansion technique extended in power series. The $CO_2$ concentration in the liquid absorbent, total absorption rate and absorption efficiency were calculated theoretically and experimentally with the liquid absorbent flow rate, gas feed flow rate and initial $CO_2$ concentration in the gas feed as parameters. The improvements in device performance under countercurrent-flow operations to increase the absorption efficiency in a carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas feed mixture using a pure water liquid absorbent were achieved and compared with those in the concurrent-flow operation. Both good qualitative and quantitative agreements were achieved between the experimental results and theoretical predictions for countercurrent flow in a hollow fiber gas-liquid membrane contactor with accuracy of $6.62{\times}10^{-2}{\leq}E{\leq}8.98{\times}10^{-2}$.