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

Abstract In this paper new experimental data are presented on the rate of carbon dioxide absorption from a synthetic flue gas (67 vol% N 2 , 18 vol% O 2 and 15 vol% CO 2 ) 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 CO 2 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 CO 2 content of the gas phase at the inlet and outlet of the rotating packed bed using an online CO 2 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 (K G a) 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 K G a followed by the liquid to gas mass flow ratio and the rotational speed.