Design and Analysis of Adsorption-based CO2 Capture

Abstract

Carbon dioxide emission isthe main greenhouse gas that contributesto global warming. One of the most significant solutions to reduce CO2 emissions is to apply Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) at a large scale. However, the main challenges with this technology are the high capital costs and energy expenditure of existing solvent-based CO2 capture technologies. This thesis aims to develop a low cost and efficient CO2 capture technology based on binding CO2 to the surface of solid adsorbents and restoring it through a change in pressure in a process called Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA). Despite the fact that adsorption CO2 capture from gas streams is exercised since the 1950s, there is no commercial-scale adsorption based CO2 capture from flue gas. This is due to adsorption being an inherently dynamic process involving many operational steps that need to be designed and scheduled carefully. A detailed adsorption based model comprising of mass, heat and momentum balance was developed in gPROMS for a better understanding of the process. The model was validated with an available model in the literature and it showed a deviation of 16.03%, 2.09% and 9.62% of the purity, recovery and the average power respectively. Afterward, the model was used to conduct parametric analysis to examine the performance of retrofitting an adsorption-based CO2 capture process to three common CO2 sources (i.e., Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC), Pulverized Coal (PC) power plant and cement plant). The outcomes from the parametric study suggest that multistage adsorption was required to reach the carbon capture design guidelines of 95% purity and 90% recovery that was specified by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the US Department of Energy. Hence, a three-stage process was used for the NGCC flue gas source and a two-stage process for the PC and cement sources with different operational parameters.

Date of Award	Jul 2018
Original language	American English
Supervisor	AHMED ALHAJAJ (Supervisor)