In recent years microporous hollow fiber membrane contactors (HFMCs) have been intensively studied for many separation operations, among which chemical CO₂ absorption from gaseous mixtures. The vast majority of studies on this subject are conducted at laboratory scale and focus on simple model gases. At pilot and demonstration scale fewer investigations are available and a thorough knowledge on the concrete applicability of HFMCs under realistic conditions is still lacking at present.

This work stems from a cooperative project involving two industrial partners, IPLOM, a refinery, and Italiana Coke, a coking plant, strongly interested in a possible implementation of HFMC-based units within their processes. A pilot plant has been expressly designed and operated for this study; the heart is a special pressure-resistant HFMC. Our aim was to experimentally assess the behavior of membranes in presence of raw industrial gaseous effluents which, due to their own complexity, could generate unexpected and challenging problems. At the same time different absorbing aqueous solutions, giving rise to different membrane/solvent interactions, have been assessed. Particular efforts were devoted in this work to exploring the feasibility of HFMC-based devices capable of operating at elevated pressures, an important issue on which a surprising lack of information exists.

近年来，对微孔中空纤维膜接触器（HFMC）进行了许多分离操作的深入研究，其中包括从气体混合物中吸收化学CO ₂。关于这个问题的绝大多数研究都是在实验室规模上进行的，并且集中在简单的模型气体上。在试点和示范规模上，可进行的调查较少，目前仍缺乏对HFMC在现实条件下具体适用性的透彻了解。

这项工作源于一个合作项目，该项目涉及两个工业合作伙伴：炼油厂IPLOM和炼焦厂Italiana Coke，他们对在其流程中可能实施基于HFMC的装置非常感兴趣。已经明确设计并运营了该研究的试验工厂；心脏是一种特殊的耐压HFMC。我们的目的是通过实验评估存在原始工业气体流出物时膜的性能，由于其自​​身的复杂性，它们可能会产生意想不到的挑战性问题。同时，已经评估了引起不同的膜/溶剂相互作用的不同吸收水溶液。在这项工作中，我们做出了特别的努力，以探索能够在高压下运行的基于HFMC的设备的可行性，