Hollow fiber-based rapid temperature swing adsorption process for carbon capture from coal-fired power plants

Abstract Post-combustion carbon capture is one of the feasible methods to reduce emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants. The biggest challenge in this technology is reduction of energy consumption. This work proposes a hollow fiber based rapid temperature swing adsorption (RTSA) method for capturing CO2 from typical coal-fired power plants. The proposed RTSA approach can shorten the operating time and using low-grade energy for regeneration of adsorption elements. In this study, the tank-in-series model is used to simulate the RTSA process including adsorption and desorption periods. A dual-column operating procedure is then used to treat the flue gas continuously from the coal-fired power plants. Main operating variables including inlet gas volume flow rate (0.1–0.2 m3/s), abandon time (0–10 s), desorption temperature (80–120 °C) on key performance factors such as discharge gas purity, capture ratio of CO2, and energy consumption per unit CO2, etc. are investigated for reducing the energy consumption. This study found that the inlet gas volume flow rate will significantly affect the capture ratio, where smaller gas volume flow rate would be beneficial to increase capture ratio. The abandon time obviously affects the purity of the captured CO2, where the longer abandon time leads to higher purity. Desorption temperature affects both the capture ratio and purity of captured CO2. The higher the desorption temperature, the greater the purity and capture ratio. For one typical basic unit with dual-column hollow fiber-based RTSA, the study found that when the inlet gas volume flow rate is 0.12 m3/s, the desorption waiting time is 7 s, and the desorption temperature is 120 °C, both the CO2 purity and capture ratio can exceed 90%. With considering the possibility of using steam in a low-pressure turbine as a source of heat required for Dual column vacuum RTSA (DC-vRTSA), the impact on the efficiency and stream data of typical coal-fired power plants are calculated. DC-vRTSA at 120 °C, 100 °C and 80 °C will reduce the efficiency of coal-fired power plants by 8.2%, 6%, and 3.4%, respectively.