Sensitivity Study of Thermo-physical Properties of Gas Phase on Absorber Design for CO2 Capture using Monoethanolamine

Abstract

Absorption of CO2 with aqueous amines in post-combustion capture is characterized as mass transfer process with chemical reaction. Hydrodynamics and mass transfer in gas and liquid phases in a packed columnhave significant influences on absorber design especially for the design of packing height. In this paper, the sensitivity study has been conducted to investigate the impacts of gas phase density, viscosity and diffusivity on the hydrodynamics and mass transfer and further the total packing height of a counter-current flow with random packing column, using reactive absorption process and integral rate-based models. Results show that density and diffusivity have opposite effect to viscosity. Amongst various properties, diffusivity has the most significant effect on the packing height compared to density and viscosity. Overestimation of diffusivity of 5% may result in decrease of 3.2% of packing height. Moreover, developing more accurate diffusivity model should be prioritized for more accurate absorber design.