A pilot plant study of a VSA process for CO2 capture from power plant flue gas

Abstract

Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of Singapore in 2009 launched a research programme on Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU). One project under the programme is entitled, Development and Demonstration of an Adsorption-based System for Post-combustion Carbon Capture, which will be the basis of this presentation. It is a collaborative project among the adsorption and process systems research groups at National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences (ICES). A pilot plant, designed based on the results from a detailed simulation study, has been constructed and commissioned. It uses 1 m long columns with 0.3 m internal diameter and is rated to capture ∼ 3 tonnes CO2 per cubic meter of adsorbent per day. Operated from a PLC, the pilot plant is designed to track all the process variables as a function of time. Special attention has been given for tracking power consumption by the vacuum pumps so that a reliable estimate of energy penalty may be obtained. In the first phase, CO2 capture and concentration from dry flue, synthetic gas containing 15% CO2 in N2 on Zeochem 13X using a simple 4-step Vacuum Swing Adsorption (VSA) cycle has been studied. Detailed breakthrough results, effects of various process variables on purity, recovery and productivity, energy consumption data will be presented at the meeting.