Use of frothers to improve the absorption efficiency of dilute sodium carbonate slurry for post combustion CO2 capture

With current environmental regulations, CO2 capture is very crucial for the survival of coal-fired power plants in the near future. In this work, the CO2 absorption performances of Na2CO3, NaOH, Monoethanolamine (MEA) and frother-enhanced Na2CO3 were investigated experimentally in a pilot scale gas-liquid countercurrent column. A surfactant was added to the sodium carbonate solution in order to increase the surface area available for CO2 transport within the packed bed. This increased the CO2 capture efficiency of dilute sodium carbonate slurry from 55.6% to 99.9%, before reaching saturation. The main intent of this study is to compare the efficiency of frothers and conventional reagents for chemical absorption CO2 capture. We analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of each of these reagents along with frother-enhanced sodium carbonate slurry.

Automated summary

This study experimentally investigated the impact of different reagents on CO2 capture efficiency, finding that the use of frother-enhanced sodium carbonate solution can significantly improve CO2 capture efficiency.