Modeling of CO2 separation in post-combustion processes by PSA

• Autor(a) principal: Hugo Rocha Peixoto
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFC
• Texto Completo: http://www.teses.ufc.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=14096
• topic: DiÃxido de carbono; CCS; PSA; Carbono ativado; carbon dioxide CCS; adsorption; PSA; activated carbon; ENGENHARIA QUIMICA

Adsorption processes involving carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and sequestration have been objects of different studies. A typical problem is the separation of CO2 from fuel gases emitted in power plants in order to mitigate the global warming effects. Recently, Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) technology is being applied to this separation. However, design and analysis of adsorption processes are a difficult task due to the large number of parameters involved. This work studies the dynamics of this separation in activated carbons C141 and WV 1050 through commercial software Aspen Adsorption (AspenTechÂ). First, we evaluated the ability of the software reproducing experimental fixed bed data in C141 reported on literature, considering the mixture 10% of helium (carrier gas), 15% dioxide carbon and 75% nitrogen, molar basis. The results showed satisfactory resemblance to the literature. From a scale-up of the analyzed system, it was sized a PSA apparatus at 298 K operating with two columns and four steps: adsorption, depressurization, purge and repressurization (Skarstrom cycle). High-pressure step was at 3.0 bar and regeneration at 1.1 bar. Fuel gas mixture simulated was composed only of CO2 and N2; the molar fraction of the first component at the feed stream was 15%. The product stream in C141 showed purity and recovery of carbon dioxide from approximately 23% and 60% on a molar basis, respectively. The productivity was 0.72 t CO2 kg-1 year-1. Through the study of design variables such as column diameter and length, feed and purge flow rate, feed composition and step times, the product purity exceeded 30 % and the recovery bordered 75%, with maximum productivity of 1.02 t CO2 kg-1 year-1 for some process settings. The process yields in WV 1050 were 26.5 % purity, 47 % recovery and 0.53 t CO2 kg-1 year-1.