The emission of SOx from marine vessels has caused serious environmental problem. Membrane contactor that offers several advantages over conventional tower device such as a compact size

operational flexibility

independent gas and liquid flow

easy scale-up

and modularity is an alternative technology in the application of marine exhaust gas desulfurization. In this work

a single ceramic tubule-based membrane contactor was fabricated from ZrO2 ceramic membrane with average pore size of 200 nm. A series of experiments of SO2 absorption were carried out using water as low-cost absorbent. The mass transfer performance of the unmodified and modified membrane was compared and the effects of gas flow rate

absorbent flow rate

feed gas concentration

temperature of absorbent on SO2 removal efficiency and mass transfer rate were investigated. The long-term stability of ceramic membrane contactor was tested as well. It was found that the overall structures and the surface porosity of ceramic membrane hardly changed by surface modification with hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS). The hydrophobic ceramic membrane with contact angle of 132° had higher desulfurization efficiency and overall mass transfer coefficient than those of the unmodified membrane under the same operating conditions. The desulfurization efficiency and mass transfer rate increased as the liquid flow rate increased. The desulfurization efficiency decreased as the gas flow rate and feed gas concentration increased while the mass transfer rate increased. Absorbent with low temperature was more favorable for the absorption of SO2. CO2 in the feed gas had little effect on the SO2 removal efficiency. The ceramic membrane contactor had lower height of transfer unit(HTU)value than conventional packed tower and showed great potential in the application of exhaust gas desulfurization.