Separation of gas mixtures with FricDiff: A comparison between experimental data and simulations

This work describes the experimental procedure and presents experimental results on the separation of helium-argon mixtures in a FricDiff module. A FricDiff module consists of two compartments separated by a porous screen. The mixture to be separated flows through one compartment, the separating agent through the other. Experiments were performed at room temperature and a pressure of approximately 2 bar with nitrogen as the separating agent. In the experiments the pressure of the inlet feed mixture was changed such that convective flow through the porous barrier took place either from the feed mixture compartment to the separating agent compartment or vice versa. The experimental data were compared with a numerical model showing good agreement between mole fractions and molar flow rates. Deviations were observed when the inlet pressures of the feed mixture were compared. This may be attributed to an inaccurate pressure measurement in the experimental setup. © 2009 American Chemical Society.