Optimization of CO2Capture Process from Simulated Flue Gas by Dry Regenerable Alkali Metal Carbonate Based Adsorbent Using Response Surface Methodology

Abstract

The low cost of K2CO3/Al2O3 adsorbent is encouragement to use it for CO2 capture from the flue gas of fossil-fuel power plants. In this study, optimization of the CO2 capture process using a K-based adsorbent in a fixed-bed reactor has been investigated. The sorbent was also characterized by different techniques such as SEM, BET, and XRD analysis before and after the reactions. Response surface methodology (RSM) combined with Box–Behnken design (BBD) was employed to evaluate the effects of the process variables (temperature, mole ratio of H2O/CO2, and vapor pretreatment time) and their interaction on the responses (CO2 capture capacity and deactivation rate constant) to achieve the optimal conditions. In addition to the experiments, the deactivation model in the noncatalytic heterogeneous reaction system was employed to evaluate the kinetic parameters (sorption rate and deactivation rate constants) using nonlinear-least-squares technique. According to the analysis of variance (ANOVA), the vapor pretreatme...