Equilibrium Stage Mathematical Model of the Chemical Absorption of CO2 into Monoethanolamine (MEA) Aqueous Solution

SERGIO F. MUSSATI; PATRICIA MORES; NICOLÁS J. SCENNA

Lisboa

Conferencia; EngOpt 2010 - 2nd International Conference on Engineering Optimization; 2010

In this paper, an equilibrium stage mathematical model of the chemical absorption process to Carbon Dioxide removal using MonoEthanolAmine (MEA) aqueous solution is presented. Precisely, a deterministic and NLP model is proposed to optimize the operating conditions to remove CO2 from flue-gases in a tray column. The number of trays of the column is assumed as a model parameter while temperature and composition profiles and flow-rates of the aqueous solution and gas streams along the column are considered as optimization variables. For the modeling, the absorption column is divided into a number of segments assuming that liquid and gas phases are well mixed. GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling System) and CONOPT are used, respectively, to implement and to solve the resulting mathematical model. The influence of the main model parameters such as the inlet gas and aqueous amine solution conditions (composition, temperature and flow-rates) and number of trays or height equivalent to a theoretical plate (HETP) on the absorption performance is investigated. The robustness and computational performance of the proposed model as well a detailed discussion of the optimization results will be presented through different case studies.