Towards commercialization: Challenges in scaling up lab scale membrane for field performance evaluation

Membrane technology is favorable for bulk CO2 removal from natural gas due to several advantages such as simple operation, no chemical or moving parts, smaller footprint and weight over other technologies, and high reliability. It has led to massive fundamental research efforts in producing better membrane performance throughout the world. However, scaling up the lab scale membrane for field performance evaluation can be quite challenging. The challenges include consistency in membrane quality for large volume process, membrane module design and fabrication techniques, harsh operating conditions with field contaminants fluctuation, and process facilities requirement for offshore application. All the scale up challenges will need to be properly addressed diligently in order to ensure the membrane can be successfully applied as per the intended field specification.