This paper firstly evaluated the CO2 absorption performance of a membrane gas absorption system (MAS) and chemical absorption system (CAS) using the overall mass transfer coefficient (K(G)a(V)) as a basis for comparison. MAS selected microporous polypropylene (PP) hollow fiber membrane contactors to capture CO2 from the simulated flue gas while CAS used a randomly packed column containing stainless Pall packing. Aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) solution was adopted in both absorbers. Experimental results show that if the fresh membranes were tested, MAS has the higher K(G)a(V) values than that of CAS. However, when all the membrane pores were completely wetted or 50% pores were plugged, CAS inversely performs better than MAS in terms of K(G)a(V) values. In addition, the economic performance of MAS and CAS was also estimated. Results indicate that if the real operational time of membrane module is reduced to less than the critical value affected by the membrane price, the CO2 captured cost of MAS is inversely higher than that of CAS. Therefore, the current well-accepted statement that MAS is superior to CAS in any case may be somewhat arbitrary unless membrane pore-wetting and pore-plugging problems, how to reduce the membrane price and how to prolong the membrane lifetime can be solved perfectly in the future. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.