RAPID PRESSURE SWING ADSORPTION PROCESS FOR CO2 SEPARATION FROM EXHAUST GASES - A PARAMETRIC STUDY

ANA M. ARIAS; MIGUEL C. MUSSATI; NICOLÁS J. SCENNA; SERGIO F. MUSSATI

Encuentro; 24th Croatian Meeting of Chemists and Chemical Engineers; 2015

Universidad de Zagreb

Since the fossil fuel combustion will still be the dominant contributor to the global energy matrix, much attention should be paid to mitigate the associated greenhouse gases emissions. Despite of the fact that rapid pressure swing adsorption (RPSA) processes have been largely used for the separation of different gas mixtures, its application for CO2 capture from flue gasses has not been intensively studied. Because of RPSA simplicity and shorter cycle time, its productivity generally is much greater than in a conventional PSA process, operating at comparable product purity and recovery values. On the other hand, the main disadvantage of this process is its higher energy consumption, compared to PSA. In this work, a parametric study of RPSA applied for CO2 capture from flue gasses using a commercial zeolite 13X as adsorbent is presented. The RPSA model, described by a set of partial and nonlinear differential equations is implemented and solved in gPROMS, an equation oriented software tool. Simulation results are presented in order to show how the main operating variables (pressure, temperature and feed composition) and dimensions of the adsorption columns (length and diameter) affect the main process performance indicators, such as CO2 purity in the exhaust stream and overall CO2 recovery.