Physical and Mechanical Properties of Hollow Fiber Membranes and Technological Parameters of the Gas Separation Process

The porous layer of composite and asymmetric hollow fiber membranes acts as a support and is exposed to strong mechanical stresses. The effect of external pressure on the polymer structure and, as a consequence, the separation characteristics of the membrane remains unsolved. Based on the solution of the Lamé approach to the calculation of the stress state of a hollow cylinder, a method of calculation was proposed for hollow fiber membranes. Calculations were based on the approximation of the isotropic nature of the physical and mechanical characteristics of the selective layer and substrate. Permissible deformation of the membrane’s selective layer was determined from the linear sector of strain-on-stress dependence, where Hooke’s law was performed. For these calculations, commercial polyethersulfone membranes were chosen with an inner and/or outer selective layer and with the following values of Young’s modulus of 2650 and 72 MPa for the selective and porous layers, respectively. The results obtained indicate that the dependence of the maximum allowable operating pressure on the substrate thickness asymptotically trends to a certain maximum value for a given membrane. Presented data showed that membranes with outer selective layer can be operated at higher working pressure. Optimal parameters for hollow fiber gas separation membrane systems should be realized, solving the optimization problem and taking into account the influence of operating, physicochemical and physicomechanical parameters on each other.