Study of an ammonia-based wet scrubbing process in a continuous flow system

A continuous gas and liquid flow, regenerative scrubbing process for CO2 capture was demonstrated at the bench-scale level. An aqueous ammonia-based solution captures CO2 from simulated flue gas in an absorber and releases a nearly pure stream of CO2 in the regenerator. After the regeneration, the solution of ammonium compounds is recycled to the absorber. The design of a continuous flow unit was based on earlier exploratory results from a semi-batch reactor, where a CO2 and N2 simulated flue gas mixture flowed through a well-mixed batch of ammonia-based solution. During the semi-batch tests, the solution was cycled between absorption and regeneration steps to measure the carrying capacity of the solution at various initial ammonia concentrations and temperatures. Consequentially, a series of tests were conducted on the continuous unit to observe the effect of various parameters on CO2 removal efficiency and regenerator effectiveness within the flow system. The parameters that were studied included absorber temperature, regenerator temperature, initial NH3 concentration, simulated flue gas flow rate, liquid solvent inventory in the flow system, and height of the packed-bed absorber. From this testing and subsequent testing, ammonia losses from both the absorption and regeneration steps were quantified, and attempts were made to maintain steady state during operations. Implications of experimental results with respect to process design are discussed.