Effects of process configurations for combination of rotating-packed bed and packed bed on CO2 capture

The effects of different process configurations, including the operation of a single rotating packed bed (RPB), a single packed bed (PB), and RPB + RPB, RPB + PB, and PB + RPB in series or in parallel, on the CO2 rich loading, amount of treated gas, amount of captured CO2 and regeneration energy using 11 m monoethanolamine (MEA) as the model absorbent were studied. When the same volume of absorber was used to achieve the same CO2 capture efficiency, an RPB was identified to be superior to a PB, and RPB + RPB in series showed the greatest performance on the amount of treated gas and regeneration energy among the discussed configurations. Compared with the operation of a single RPB, the amount of treated gas of RPB + RPB in series with the same volume of the single RPB increased by 20.6% due to an increase of mass transfer driving force, whereas the regeneration energy decreased by 9.5% due to an increase of rich loading. Although the CO2 capture efficiency decreased with increasing gas flow rate, the total amount of captured CO2 was found to increase. The treated gas amount could further be increased 80-140% compared with 11 m MEA when the 4 m diethylenetriamine (DETA) + 4 m piperazine (PZ) was used, suggesting this was a superior absorbent for CO2 capture, and thus, the development of absorbent is as important as the development of process. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.