Numerical Investigation of Hydrocarbon Enrichment of Process Gas Mixtures by Permeation through Polymeric Membranes

Abstract In membrane‐based gaseous separations, a consensus on the distribution of the components of the permeate stream in the immediate membrane vicinity has yet to be reached and the possibility of an underestimation of selective gas permeance due to lack of gas mixing on the permeate side exists. In this work, a numerical study of the permeation of ethylene and propylene in their binary mixtures with nitrogen through a composite poly(dimethylsiloxane) coated polysulfone membrane was performed. Continuity and momentum equations, along with gas compressibility and permeance properties for individual species of the gas mixture, were introduced into a comprehensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Simulation results showed that irrespective of the stage‐cut, gases with higher selectivity were well mixed in the vicinity of the membrane on the permeate side.