Effect of absorption volume in carbon dioxide capture with hot potassium carbonate solution: pilot plant tests and process simulation

Global warming is a serious problem that can have tremendous effect worldwide and must be faced as soon as possible: the interest on carbon capture technology is increasing in recent years due to the possibility of reducing carbon dioxide emissions without a complete change in the infrastructure, since often carbon capture plant can be retrofitted in existing plants. The capture with Hot Potassium Carbonate (HPC) is an alternative to the most common amine-based capture, and has some advantages like the relatively low cost, toxicity and enthalpy requirements respect to most amines; moreover, it is a non-volatile solvent, therefore absorbent losses to the atmosphere and solvent replacement costs are reduced. Giammarco-Vetrocoke company has around 70 years of experience in designing carbon capture plants using HPC solution and owns a small pilot plant which is used to try and test new configurations and to evaluate their feasibility. The thesis aim is that of evaluating the effect of absorption volume on the capture efficiency, comparing the use of one or two absorbers in series at the same process conditions. The pilot plant tests are followed by a simulation part which is aimed at verifying the experimental results obtained in the pilot plant and study other variables that cannot be analysed in the pilot plant.