Mathematical modeling of mass transfer in multicomponent gas mixture across the synthesized composite polymeric membrane

This study presents a new mathematical model to investigate the ternary gas mixture permeation across a synthesized composite PDMS/PA membrane. A novel algorithm is introduced for direct determination of diffusion coefficients. It pertains to study gas permeation through concentration dependent systems and comparing with traditional time lag method confirms the precision of this approach. Feature is that this method does not require physical properties of the membrane. Accordingly, it can be used as a general comprehensive model. In addition, molecular pair and molecular trio interactions were taken into account and in order to investigate the deviation of gas mixture from ideality, fugacities were calculated. The results showed that permeabilites of H-2 and CH4 increase with increasing feed temperature and fugacity, while that of C3H8 decreases. Moreover, increasing C3H8 concentration improved permeation properties of all components. The results demonstrated that considering the concentration dependent system (CDS) leads to the small deviation of about less than 10%, while the deviation of 50-100% by the concentration independent system (CIS) was acquired. Additionally the results indicated that permeability of the lighter gases is specially affected by diffusivity, while solubility is dominant on permeability of the heavier gases. (C) 2012 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.