A Process Intensification Approach for CO₂ Absorption Using Amino Acid Solutions and a Guanidine Compound

Abstract

Environmentally friendly amino-acid salt solutions are used for the absorption of carbon dioxide from concentrated flue-gas streams via chemical absorption. Process intensification reduces operating and capital costs by combining chemical reactions and separation operations. Here, we present a new process-intensification approach that combines the CO2 capture and the amino-acid regeneration steps into a single process carried out in a slurry three-phase reactor. The absorbed CO2 precipitates as a solid carbonated guanidine compound. The cycle is completed by separation of the solid precipitate to strip the CO2 and regenerate the guanidine compound, while the liquid solution is recycled to the slurry reactor. The process was studied by modifying a model developed by the authors for a gas-liquid bubble column without the presence of the guanidine compound. The guanidine precipitation reaction was accounted for using kinetic parameters calculated by the authors in another study. The proposed model was implemented by modifying an existing computer code used for the simulation of gas-liquid bubble columns. The calculated results showed that the proposed cycle can significantly reduce energy, equipment, and operating costs and can make an important contribution to developing a competitive cost-effective large-scale process for CO2 capture.

Keywords

• CO₂ absorption
• amino acids
• process intensification
• slurry bubble column