Carbon Capture from a Simulated Flue Gas Using a Rotating Packed Bed Adsorber and Mono Ethanol Amine (MEA)

In this paper new experimental data are presented on the rate of carbon dioxide absorption from a synthetic flue gas (67 vol% N2, 18 vol% O2 and 15 vol% CO2) in a rotating packed bed. The bed had an inner diameter of 80 mm and an outer diameter of 300 mm and operated at speeds of 600 – 1450 rpm. The packing used was Expamet stainless steel mesh. The novelty of this work is that the gas phase was saturated with water vapour at 40˚C, as would be the case in CO2 capture from flue gas. Other investigations on carbon capture using a rotating packed bed reported in the literature have used dry gases. The solvents used in the experiments were monoethanolamine (MEA) solutions containing 30mass% MEA and 90mass% MEA. The rate of absorption was measured by analysing the CO2 content of the gas phase at the inlet and outlet of the rotating packed bed using an online CO2 meter. The pressure drop, power consumption and temperatures of the gas and liquid phases were measured as well. The measured overall gas phase mass transfer coefficient (KGa) was found to be in agreement with similar measurements from literature and ranged in value from 1.8 - 6.2 s-1. The concentration of MEA was found to have the largest effect on KGa followed by the liquid to gas mass flow ratio and the rotational speed.