Geometry effect on membrane absorption for CO₂ capture. Part I: A hybrid modeling approach

Membrane absorption (MA) has a great prospect for CO₂ capture. In MA modeling, conventional one-dimensional (1D)- and two-dimensional (2D)-models make simplification of membrane contactor (MC) geometry. Geometry simplification allows an easy process modeling and numerical solution, however, is only reasonable for particular MCs. Here, efforts are underway to quantify the geometry effect on the MA-CO₂ performance. First, we proposed a rigorous 3D model without geometry simplification for simulating the MA-CO₂ process in real MCs and then validated it with experimental data. More importantly, we highlighted a preferable hybrid model in which two correction factors were introduced to a 2D model to make the simulation results approximately equal to the 3D simulation values. The correction factors were correlated with dimensionless fluid dynamic parameters for characterizing the geometry effects on flowing fluids. Such hybrid modeling contributes to characterizing the influence of geometry on the MA-CO₂ performance and improving computation accuracy-efficiency combinations.