Design Methodology of Absorption Process (use of Mea Absorbent) Based on Self-heat Recuperation Technology

Abstract

A chemical absorption process is the most commercially used process for CO2 separation in flue gases. However, the process needs a huge amount of energy to strip CO2 in a stripper. To overcome this problem, a new gas separation process using chemical absorption method based on self-heat recuperation technology is proposed in this study for energy saving. In this process, the regeneration energy of absorbent is provided from the exhausted heat of absorber and stripper by using a compressor and heat exchangers. The process is divided into two modules (absorber and stripper), in which the internal heat circulation is maximized. Then, the process is reconstructed by combining these modules. We evaluated the amount of energy consumption of the process as compared with the conventional gas separation process for CO2 by using a commercial process simulator (PRO/II). From the simulation results, energy consumption of the proposed process decreased to one-third at that of conventional heat recovery process. Thus, the proposed process based on self-heat recuperation technology is a very promising process for energy saving of gas separation.