Removal of Carbon Dioxide from Flue Gas by Pressure Swing Adsorption

Abstract

The increased emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere are causing global warming which leads to the unwanted climate change with consequent risk of extreme whether and adverse effect on biodiversity. Under Kyoto Protocol,1997 industrialized countries have agreed to limit or reduce their emissions of these greenhouse gases by at least 5% below 1990 levels during the period 2008 to 2012 Carbon dioxide makes greatest contribution to green house gas effect due large amount of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere by human activity. Approximately one third of all CO2 emissions due to human activity come from fossil fuels used for generating electricity, with each power plant capable of emitting several million tones of CO2 annually. These emissions could be reduced substantially, without major changes to the basic process, by capturing and storing the CO2. Among the carbon dioxide capturing technologies, chemical absorption is presently practiced in the industry. Pressure swing adsorption process is also a potential technology for the removal carbon dioxide from the flue gas due to its proven record in other gas separation processes. However , the use of PSA process for the removal and recovery of carbon dioxide from hot fuel gas streams at high temperature, the first and most important issue is to find appropriate adsorbent. This work focuses on the optimization of cyclic adsorption processes to improve the performance of CO2 capture from flue gas, consisting of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The adopted processes are the VPSA (Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption) process. The main goal of this study is to improve the purity and recovery of carbon dioxide.