Carbon Capture Enhancement by Water‐Based Nanofluids in a Hollow Fiber Membrane Contactor

Nanoparticles are being used in the CO 2 solvents to improve the capture performance. Herein, a 2D model is proposed to study the CO 2 capture performance from a gaseous mixture using a hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC). Both water‐based nanofluids of carbon nanotubes (CNT) and SiO 2 are deployed as the carbon absorbents. It is verified that Brownian motion and grazing effect are the major reasons to enhance the mass transfer of nanofluids. The simulation findings show that the modeling data conform well with the experimental studies. The root‐mean‐square errors for SiO 2 nanofluid and CNT nanofluid are 2.37% and 2.56%, respectively. When the amounts of nanoparticles increase between 0.02 and 0.06 wt%, CO 2 capture efficiencies of SiO 2 and CNT nanofluids increase by 7.92% and 13.17%, respectively. Also, the CNT nanofluid has a better capture performance than the SiO 2 nanofluid. Furthermore, research is conducted into how membrane characteristics affect HFMC performance. It is indicated that increasing the membrane porosity and decreasing the membrane tortuosity have a positive impact on the capture efficiency. This work demonstrates the potentials in the use of nanoparticles in CO 2 solvents and provides a solid theoretical basis for nanofluids to significantly enhance gas absorption.