The effect of alkanolamine mixtures on CO2 absorption efficiency in T-Shaped microchannel

Abstract

In this investigation, removal of CO2was carried out using aqueous mixtures of MEA + DEA and MEA + TEA in a T-shaped microchannel. For this purpose, the effect of parameters temperature, amine concentration in the solvent, the volume percent of amines in the solvent, the gas flow rate, and the liquid flow rate was investigated by the central composite design method. The results of experiments indicated that increasing the operating temperature did not have a significant effect on CO2 removal efficiency in both mixtures. However, the CO2 removal efficiency increases with increasing amine concentration, the volume percent of the amine in the solvent, and the liquid flow rate, but the CO2 removal efficiency decreases significantly as the gas flow rate increases. Under optimal conditions, the maximum removal coefficient of CO2 obtained by MEA +DEA and MEA+TEA aqueous mixtures is 97.9% and 91.9%, respectively. Besides, the maximum volumetric overall gas-phase mass transfer coefficient under operation condition of the experiment was obtained to be 110 and 67.5 (kmol/ m3 h kpa), respectively It indicates that compared to other mass transfer devices, using microchannel in the CO2 absorption process significantly increases the volumetric overall gas-phase mass transfer coefficient and provides a new approach to obtained high absorption percentage.