Contribution to the Development of a New Membrane Technology for Methane Gas Dehydration

Abstract

Poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET)-based membranes were prepared in the laboratory, where the dehydration performance of pure PET membranes is improved by incorporating different amounts of Poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) average Mn 6000 as polymeric additive, flat sheet membranes are formed using the phase inversion method, the thickness of the obtained films was in the range between 60 and 130 μm. The produced membranes were evaluated in two experimental setups, where the permeabilities of water vapor and methane gas were measured, allowing the examination of membranes performance for the dehydration of methane gas. The results showed that the prepared films have an asymmetric structure, and as the PEG amount increased, large macro-voids formed, the sub-layer pores size diameter, skin layer thickness and water vapour permeabilities WVP’s increased also. It was significantly found that the polyethylene glycol (PEG) content in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) membranes has a great role in improving the dehydration of methane gas, whereby if the polyethylene glycol (PEG) content is higher than 20%, overall, the methane gas permeabilities decrease significantly. The results obtained showed that the polyethylene terephthalate films are able to dehydrate methane gas and their performance for methane dehydration were improved by the addition of polyethylene glycol (PEG).