Trichloroethylene/Nitrogen Mixture Separation via membrane operations: Comparison with traditional technologies

In the last decades, polymeric membranes attracted a lot of interest in the gas separation process. Trichloroethylene is a very strong polluting and its recovery during process transformation is very important. In this work, membrane integrated process performance for C2HCl3/N-2 mixture gas separation is compared to traditional technologies using high pressure condensation and cryogenic condensation. The simulations carried out aimed at increasing C2HCl3 recovery and reducing C2HCl3 concentration in the stream discharged into atmosphere. Process intensification metrics were used to compare the separation and energetic performance. Membrane integrated process showed the best solution in terms of energy intensity (61.6 kJ mol(-1)) with respect to high pressure condensation and cryogenic system, which showed energy intensity of 142.9 and 110.7 kJ mol(-1), respectively.