Among the pollutants known as greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide (CO2), although it is less toxic than the others, has by far the most significant amount of pollution in the earth’s atmosphere. Also, it is one of the typical components of natural gas, which is removed due to the increase in fuel value and the adjustment of pipeline standards to prevent acid corrosion. There are various techniques for CO2 removal, among which membrane processes are a new and applied technology with many advantages in industrial separation. 3-diethylaminopropylamine (DEAPA) is a new amine absorbent with good interaction with CO2 molecules and increased absorption capacity, which shows good potential for CO2 separation. This study aims to investigate the performance potential of CO2 absorption by an aqueous solution of DEAPA as an absorbent in a hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) with hydrophobic porous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) fibers. A two-dimensional mathematical model was presented and solved based on the finite element method (FEM) to evaluate the CO2 removal efficiency. The effect of different parameters such as amine concentration, liquid and gas flow rate, liquid temperature, CO2 partial pressure, membrane tortuosity, number of hollow fibers, and packing density on CO2 absorption performance was investigated. The model results showed that increasing the gas flow rate and membrane tortuosity has a negative effect on CO2 removal. Also, increasing the amine concentration, packing density, the number of hollow fibers, DEAPA concentration, liquid temperature, and CO2 partial pressure improve the CO2 separation efficiency.
