See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/238681749

PRESSURE SWING ADSORPTION FOR CARBON DIOXIDE SEQUESTRATION

Article · January 2005

CITATIONS READS

12 4,161

3 authors:

Carlos Grande Simone Cavenati

SINTEF Universidade da Madeira
112 PUBLICATIONS   4,519 CITATIONS    18 PUBLICATIONS   1,547 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Alírio E Rodrigues
University of Porto
852 PUBLICATIONS   21,004 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Engineering Perfumes View project

Study on metal-organic framework and zeolite adsorbers for applicative CO2 capture. View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Alírio E Rodrigues on 21 May 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

PRESSURE SWING ADSORPTION FOR CARBON DIOXIDE

SEQUESTRATION
Carlos A. Grande *, Simone Cavenati, Alírio E. Rodrigues
Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering (LSRE), Departamento de
Engenharia Química, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto
Frias (4200-465), Porto, Portugal.

Abstract. The members of the MERCOSUR as well as the European Union have agreed in the Kyoto
protocol to diminish 12% the emissions of carbon dioxide up to 2010. Carbon dioxide emissions are quite
high in the entire European continent with many countries being in the top 20 larger polluting countries of the
world. Co-generation of electricity and heat has proved to be one of the most efficient and less polluting
technologies for power generation. Even though, these centrals are still based on the combustion of fossil
fuels, requiring additional processes for carbon dioxide sequestration and concentration for further uses.
Many alternatives are already available for CO capture from flue gases: cryogenic process, absorption with
2
monoethanolamine, MEA and membranes. Up to 1995, Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) adsorption
technologies were the ones having the higher capture efficiency, although was penalized by global
economics.
In this work we studied the feasibility of concentration and capture of carbon dioxide from flue gases of
electric power centrals by Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) units. Two different adsorbents, zeolite 13X and
activated carbon, were used as selective adsorbents for carbon dioxide. We used a four-step cycle comprising
pressurization, feed, counter-current blowdown and purge at temperature around 373 K, conditions of a
typical co-generation exhaust stream. Following, scale-up and process economics (installation and
operational costs and its impact in energy price) were evaluated.

Keywords: Carbon Dioxide, Sequestration and Pressure Swing Adsorption.

1. Introduction
Earth's atmosphere is roughly 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases. Water vapor (varying in
amount from 0 to 2%), carbon dioxide (around 260 ppmv) and some other minor gases present in the
atmosphere absorb some of the solar thermal radiation keeping an energetic balance that allows Earth to be
warmer than it should be (around –20C). These gases are known as greenhouse gases (GHG) because they act as
a partial blanket for thermal radiation. This blanketing is a natural greenhouse effect. A higher concentration of
any GHG due to human activities (anthropogenic GHG), implies that the greenhouse effect will increase
changing this energetic balance with still unknown consequences in global weather.
It was observed that in the last century the ocean level has increased in a direct relationship with an increase
in average ground temperature. To avoid serious catastrophes, many countries agreed in some commitments
(Kyoto protocol) to stabilize the GHG concentration in the atmosphere, for carbon dioxide, methane, NOx, SOx,
etc. As the country emissions of GHG are not uniform and as local economic factors have to be also taken into
account, the commitments are not equal to all countries. As an example, in Figure 1 we show the CO2 emissions
per capita in European countries.

*
To whom all correspondence should be addressed.
Address: Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering (LSRE), Faculdade de
Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias (4200-465), Porto,
Portugal
Email: cgrande@fe.up.pt

1
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

One of the main sources of anthropogenic GHG is carbon dioxide from fossil fuel power stations. Our
energetic systems are still dependent on fossil fuels. By 2004, 80% of the world electricity was generated using
fossil fuels (Klara, 2003) and according to some projections, this percentage can even increase in the next
twenty years. To avoid disruption in energy supply or economic instabilities until less contaminant energy
production processes are implemented, the capture of carbon dioxide and its storage is presented as a temporary
solution. In this context, our work is focused in the post-combustion treatment of flue gases obtained in power
stations. The reason on focusing in this particular CO2 emission source is the easiness in control stationary
sources of GHG generation compared to mobile ones (i.e. transportation).

Figure 1. Carbon dioxide emissions per capita of European countries.

The capture of CO2 in industrial streams is actually being performed by many processes, namely absorption
in monoethanolamine (MEA) and solvent extraction. The first process is a proven technology used in natural gas
and steel industry. The problems to extend this technology to CO2 sequestration from flue gases are the global
economics of the process, which is not very suitable for low molar fractions of CO2 (Rao and Rubin, 2002),
extensive solvent corrosion of the MEA and also the high energetic demand of the process. Solvent extraction
with different chemicals was also considered although little detail about power consumption was given and also
these processes are always based on proprietary solvents (Iijima et al., 2004). Capture of carbon dioxide from
flue gases by Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) was considered recently in some works (Kikkinides et al., 1993;
Park et al., 2002; Ko et al., 2003) as a possible alternative technology. Normally, two PSA units in series are
applied (Park et al., 2002). In the first unit the CO2 concentration is increased up to ~50% and then is further
concentrated to >99% in the second unit.

2
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

In this work we have studied the first PSA unit for removal and further concentration of carbon dioxide from
a power plant flue gases using Pressure Swing Adsorption technology. Based on adsorption equilibrium data of
pure components on activated carbon and zeolite 13X (two selective adsorbents for CO2) we have selected
zeolite 13X for experimental and simulation PSA studies. A four-step Skarstrom type cycle comprising
pressurization, feed, blowdown and purge was used to perform benchmark single-column PSA experiments. To
enhance the purity of CO2, a five-step cycle (including rinse with purified CO2) was also studied. The process
was further scaled-up for continuous operation in a power plant delivering 500 KWh.

2. Experimental
In this work we have considered an ideal mixture composed of 15% CO2 balanced by N2. This mixture
corresponds to a coal-fired power plant flue gas where water, NOx and SOx were previously removed and also
assuming that the adsorption behavior of nitrogen (near 80%) and oxygen (around 5%) is equivalent in both
adsorbents.
Adsorption equilibrium of pure carbon dioxide and nitrogen on Maxorb activated carbon and zeolite 13X
CECA were measured in a Rubotherm magnetic suspension microbalance operated in closed system from 323 –
423 K and from 0 – 1 bar.
The PSA benchmark experiments were performed in a single column unit that operates under unsteady-state
conditions simulating the real operation of a column in a continuous multi-column PSA. The equipment allows
different cycle configurations and can work with a generic ternary mixture and it operates from ambient
temperature to 673K. Single gas flowrates are individually controlled. Temperature inside the column is
measured in three different points: 0.18, 0.43 and 0.68 m from the feed inlet in a 0.0105m ∅ x 0.83m column.
The complete equipment set-up was reported elsewhere (Da Silva, 1999). The molar flowrate of gases exiting
the column are measured by gas chromatograph equipment (Chrompack 9000, Netherlands) with Thermal
Conductivity detector. The benchmark experiments were performed with a base mixture of CO2 (15%) balanced
by nitrogen. Pressure of the feed was established in 1.30 bar while blowdown pressure was also fixed in 0.10
bar. The temperature of the flue gas was also considered constant: 363 K.
All gases used in this report were provided by Air Liquide and used as received: carbon dioxide N24,
nitrogen N50 and helium N50 (purity greater than 99.4, 99.999 and 99.999% respectively).

3. Theoretical
The multicomponent extension of the multisite Langmuir model was used to predict CO2-N2 adsorption
equilibrium based on parameters obtained from pure component data. This model is expressed by (Nitta et al.,
1984):
ai
 q i*    q* 
  = K i Py i 1 − ∑  i  (1)
q  
i  q max,i

 max,i   

3
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

where qmax,i is the maximum amount adsorbed of component i, ai is number of neighboring sites occupied by a
molecule of component i and Ki is the adsorption constant which has an Arrhenius exponential temperature
dependence as:

K i = K i exp(− ∆H i / Rg Ts )
0
(2)

where Ki0 is the adsorption constant of component i at the limit of T → ∞ and (-∆Hi) is the isosteric heat of
adsorption of component i at zero coverage. The parameters used for prediction of multicomponent mixtures are
shown in Table 1. The saturation capacity of each component is imposed by the thermodynamic constraint

ai q max ,i = constant .
The mathematical model used to predict the behavior of a single column in the Pressure Swing
Adsorption process is already published in literature (Da Silva, 1999; Grande and Rodrigues, 2004). Basic
assumptions of the model is that the adsorbent is a bidisperse solid, the pressure drop in the column is described
by the Ergun equation and the mass transfer in macro-micropores can be described by a bi-LDF (Linear Driving
Force) model. As the kinetics of all gases studied in this work are very fast, only one global resistance was used
(single LDF constant required). The performance of the PSA unit was evaluated according to four basic
parameters: purity and recovery of product (CO2), purity of the stream to be purified (N2) and productivity of the
PSA, defined by:

tblow tfeed

PUR CO2 =
∫0
C CO 2 u z =0 dt
; PUR N 2 =
∫0
C N 2 u z = L dt
(3)
 tblow   tfeed 
 ∑ ∫ C i u z =0 dt   ∑ ∫ C i u z =0 dt 
 i 0   i 0 

tfeed tpurge trinse

RECOVERY =
∫ 0
C CO 2 u z = L dt − ∫
0
C CO 2 u z = L dt − ∫
0
C CO 2 u z =0 dt
(4)
tfeed
∫ 0
C CO 2 u z =0 dt

 tblow C u dt − tpurge C u dt − trinse C u dt Q

∫0 CO 2 z =0 ∫0 CO 2 z = L ∫0 CO 2 z =0  o
PRODUCTIVITY =  (5)
t total wads

where u is the superficial velocity of the gas, Ci is the concentration of component i, wads is the adsorbent weight
loaded in the column, Qo is the inlet flowrate, tfeed, trinse and tblow are the times of the feed, rinse and counter-
current blowdown steps, respectively.
The PSA mathematical model was solved using gPROMS software (PSE Enterprise, UK). The
discretization method for the spatial domain in the column was second order centered finite difference method
(CFDM) with 140 intervals in the whole column.

4
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

4. Results and Discussion

Adsorption equilibrium of pure carbon dioxide and nitrogen in Maxorb activated carbon and zeolite 13X
CECA at 373 are reported in Figure 2a. It can be observed that the amount of carbon dioxide adsorbed in the
whole pressure range evaluated is higher in zeolite 13X, as well as the selectivity of the adsorbent plotted in
Figure 2b. This selectivity was defined as the logarithmic ratio of pressure divided by amount adsorbed; large
difference between the curves indicates higher selectivity of the adsorbent. Due to the higher selectivity, for
further studies zeolite 13X CECA was used.
2.5 8
13X-CO2
7
Amount adsorbed [mol/kg]

13X-N2
2
AC-CO2 6

1.5 AC-N2 (a) 5 (b)

ln(P/q)
4
1 3
13X-CO2
2 13X-N2
0.5
1 AC-CO2
AC-N2
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Pressure [kPa] Amount adsorbed [mol/kg]

Figure 2. (a) Adsorption equilibrium of carbon dioxide and nitrogen on zeolite 13X (CECA) and Maxorb activated
carbon at 373 K. (b) Selectivity of zeolite 13X and Maxorb activated carbon towards carbon dioxide.

Adsorption equilibrium parameters of the multisite Langmuir model for carbon dioxide and nitrogen on
zeolite 13X (CECA) are reported in Table 1. The resistance to diffusion in the particle was simplified by a single
LDF (Linear Driving Force) equation and the numerical value of the constant used at 363 K is also reported in
Table 1. These values were determined from breakthrough curves and they are consistent with previously
reported ones (Park et al., 2002).

Table 1. Adsorption equilibrium and kinetic parameters of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in zeolite 13X (CECA)

Gas qmax,i [mol/kg] Kio [kPa-1] -∆Hi [kJ/mol] ai ki [s-1]

CO2 17.901 1.40x10-10 54.729 13.120 0.11
N2 29.676 1.79x10-7 15.716 7.917 0.50

4.1. Fixed-bed model testing

In order to test the mathematical model, binary breakthrough curves were performed at 363 K with a binary
N2/CO2 mixture with ratio 85/15 in a fixed-bed column of 0.0105m ∅ x 0.83m. The pressure at the outlet of the
column was fixed at 1.3 bars and total flowrate was 2.5 SLPM (standard liters per minute). The column was
previously filled with helium at the same pressure. The results obtained are shown in Figure 3: outlet molar
flowrate of gases and temperatures in three different points of the column (0.17, 0.43 and 0.68m from feed
inlet). The solid points correspond to the experimental data measured while the lines correspond to the
predictions of the mathematical model. The parameters used for the simulation are detailed in Table 2 and will
also be used for PSA simulations. As can be seen, the simulated results agree with the experimental data very

5
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

well. It has to be noted that the temperature increase due to adsorption of carbon dioxide (+15K) corresponds to
its high heat of adsorption.
1.6 390
1.4 385 0.17m
N2 (b)
0.43m
Molar flow [mmol/s]

1.2 (a)

Temperature [K]
380 0.68m
1
375
0.8
370
0.6
365
0.4 CO2
0.2 360

0 355
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time [seconds] Time [seconds]

Figure 3. Binary breakthrough curve at 363 K with a binary N2/CO2 mixture (85/15). The pressure was fixed at 1.3 bars
and total flowrate was 2.5 SLPM (standard liters per minute). Column and adsorbent properties are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Column and adsorbent properties for fixed-bed and PSA experiments of CO2/N2 separation with zeolite 13X.

Property Value Property Value

Temperature [K] 363 Feed Pressure [bar] 1.30
Total flowrate [SLPM] 2.5 CO2 molar fraction 0.15
Column length [m] 0.83 Column radius [m] 0.0105
Column porosity 0.33 Column density [kg/m3] 721
Wall heat density [kg/m3] 8238 Pellet tortuosity 2.0
Global heat transfer coef. [W/m2K] 20.0 Pellet porosity 0.54
Wall heat transfer coef. [W/m2K] 35.0 Solid specific heat [J/kgK] 900

4.2. PSA Cycle definition and experimental examples.

If a mixture of gases is to be separated by a fixed bed where an adsorbent is loaded, before breakthrough of
the most adsorbed compound the column must be regenerated. In a PSA process, the regeneration of the
adsorbent is done by change (decrease) of the pressure in the column. In a typical configuration of a PSA unit,
two outlet streams are obtained: the one where the less adsorbed component (N2 in the work) is purified and
another where the most adsorbed compound (CO2) is concentrated. It is desirable that PSA technology for CO2
sequestration meets the following specifications: 90% or higher carbon dioxide recovery with purity higher than
98%. This purity limit is to diminish transportation and compression of the stream for storage in a convenient
location (deep ocean storage for example). In steel industry, recovery and concentration of CO2 to purity higher
than 98% is achieved using two PSA units in series (Park et al., 2002). The optimization of the full process is
rather complex and in this work we only analyzed the first PSA unit to increase CO2 purity to values higher than
50%.
Two different cycle configurations were tested. The first one is the classical PSA cycle (four-step cycle)
comprising counter-current pressurization with less adsorbed compound, feed, counter-current blowdown and
counter-current purge with less adsorbed compound. The second configuration includes a rinse step with
purified carbon dioxide after the feed step to produce CO2 with higher purity.

6
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

In a PSA unit there are many variables to be considered. In this case we have fixed the operating variables of
the feed stream in 363 K and total inlet pressure of 1.3 bars. According to the steepness of the isotherms of CO2
it can be noticed that good results will be obtained using very small pressure in the blowdown step. As a trade
off situation between high power consumption and desorption of CO2, 0.10 bars were imposed in the blowdown
and purge steps. In order to achieve the best unit performance according to the different residence time of the
most important steps, we have considered two different approaches: change the flowrates for fixed step-times
and fix the flowrates of pressurization, feed and purge steps and change the step times trying to obtain a set of
results that corresponds to different residence times inside the PSA column.
It is important to verify that the mathematical model that will describe the preformance of the PSA unit and
will be used for the process scale-up gives reliable results in benchmark experiments. In Figure 4 we show the
experimental results obtained for an ideal mixture of CO2 (15%) and N2 (85%) at 363 K with a feed flowrate of
3.0 SLPM and purge flowrate of 0.5 SLPM of pure nitrogen. Results shown in Figure 4 correspond to a cycle
(62) after cyclic steady state (CSS) was reached (after 50 cycles). The performance parameters (product purity
and recovery) obtained in the four-step cycle for different combination of step times are presented in Table 3.

6 1.4
(a) Nitrogen
1.2 (b)
5
Carbon Dioxide
Molar flow [mmol/s]

1
Pressure [bar]

4
0.8
3
0.6
2
0.4
1 0.2

0 0
0 100 200 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time [seconds] Time [seconds]

376 376
374 374
(c) (d)
372 372
Temperature [K]

Temperature [K]

370 370
368 368
366 366
364 364
362 362
360 360
358 358
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time [seconds] Time [seconds]
Figure 4. Four step PSA results for (15%)CO2- (85%)N2 separation using zeolite 13X (run 2 in Table 3): (a) molar flowrate
exiting the column; (b) pressure history at the column exit in CSS; (c) temperature history of a cycle in CSS at 0.17m from
feed inlet; (d) temperature history of a cycle in CSS at 0.68m from feed inlet.

It is clear from Table 3 that there is a trade-off situation between feed flowrate and amount of purge and the
purity of both streams exiting the PSA unit. In all cases the purity of the CO2 rich-stream was never higher than

7
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

52% with a CO2 capture ranging from 65-86%. These results are comparable with previous results reported in
literature for similar systems (Kikkinides and Yang, 1993; Park et al., 2002).
A common way to increase the purity of the most adsorbed component is to use a rinse step after feed
(Ruthven et al., 1994). The rinse step is performed by recycling (compressing) part of the CO2 obtained as
product. The results, also shown in Table 3, showed a clear increase in the CO2 purity up to 80% without losses
in its capture. Even when at first glance the energy consumption of this cycle is expected to be higher, it is
supposed to be counterbalanced with less energy demand in the second unit for CO2 sequestration that can be a
second PSA unit or another CO2 capture process like MEA or solvent absorption.

Table 3. Performance parameters for CO2 recovery from flue gas using PSA process with zeolite 13X at 363 K.
Run+ Q, SLPM tpress, s tfeed, s trinse, s tblow, s tpurge, s Purity, N2, % Purity CO2, % Capture CO2, %
2 3.00 20 100 -- 70 120 99.14 46.17 70.30
S3 3.00 20 80 -- 70 100 99.81 41.68 79.15
S4 3.00 20 120 -- 70 70 97.46 50.89 65.12
5 3.00 20 120 -- 70 50 96.97 51.54 66.04
S6 3.00 20 100 -- 70 70 98.45 47.78 72.58
S7 2.50 25 100 -- 70 70 99.30 44.01 79.57
9 2.00 30 100 -- 70 70 99.67 38.07 86.14
S11 2.00 30 100 10 70 70 99.62 53.85 85.55
12 2.00 30 100 20 70 70 99.61 64.23 84.54
S13 2.00 30 100 30 70 70 99.50 72.04 80.43
S14 2.00 30 100 40 70 70 99.48 78.27 73.53
S15 2.50 25 100 25 70 70 99.16 75.89 75.11
16 3.00 20 100 25 70 70 98.12 80.90 66.40
+
Values preceded by an S indicates only simulation results whether other runs correspond to experimental values.

4.3. Continuous process and scale-up.

To estimate the real dimensions of the proposed process and to assess its energetic demands the results
obtained from run 16 (see Table 3) were taken as a reference. In the previous section, the step-times as well as
the flowrates were varied freely, which is not the real situation. As the flue gases have to be treated in a
continuous process, a multi-column PSA scheme has to be decided. Another consideration to be made is that the
system will operate adiabatically while the benchmark experiments were performed in non-adiabatic conditions.
In order to treat the same amount of gases from run 16, a 3-column PSA process was proposed as shown in
Figure 5. The step times and flowrates of each step are: tpress = 15s (Q = 3.5 SLPM); tfeed = 100s (Q = 3.0
SLPM); trinse = 25s (Q = 1.0 SLPM); tblow = 100s; tpurge = 60s (Q = 0.7 SLPM).

Figure 5. Continuous scheduling of the 3-column PSA for continuous CO2 sequestration from flue gases.

FEED R B PURGE P
B PURGE P FEED R B
R B PURGE P FEED

8
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

With that step-times and flowrates and operating adiabatically, the purity of the N2-rich stream was 98.28%,
CO2 purity was 80.68% and CO2 capture was 67.06%.
The scale-up of the process was done as follows: a 500KWh power central that produces 0.7 kg CO2 per
KWh was considered. With this consideration, the flowrate of flue gas to be treated is 19796.5 SLPM. Using a
direct relationship of mass of adsorbent used in the benchmark experiments and extending to the flowrate to be
treated in the industrial stream, the amount of zeolite 13X required is 1370 kg per column. Assuming that
column properties are the same as benchmark runs (see Table 2), the volume of each column is to be 1.90m³ that
were obtained in a column of 2.0m length by 0.55m radius. With the same time schedule, the flowrates in these
columns are now: Qpress = 23095 SLPM; Qfeed = 19796.5 SLPM; Qrinse = 6600.0 SLPM; Qpurge = 4620 SLPM.
Also, due to the pressure drop in the column, the pellet diameter of the zeolite has to be increased from 1x10-4m
to 2x10-4m. Simulation results of this scale up for a single column after CSS was reached are shown in Figure 6.

1.4
20 Lc = 0m
Nitrogen
(a) 1.2 (b)
Carbon dioxide Lc = 2m
15 1
Flowrate [mol/s]

Pressure [bar]

0.8
10
0.6

0.4
5
0.2

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time [seconds] Time [seconds]

400 40

390 3 (c) 35 (d)

Concentration [mmol/m³]

30
Temperature [K]

380
25
2 3
1
370 20
4
5 15
360
1
10
350 2 4 5
5
340 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Column length [m] Column length [m]

Figure 6. Simulation results for PSA scale-up for (15%)CO2- (85%)N2 separation using zeolite 13X: (a) molar flowrate
exiting the column; (b) pressure history of the column in CSS; (c) temperature at the end of each step in CSS; (d)
concentration profiles at the end of each step: 1-pressurization, 2-feed, 3-rinse, 4-blowdown, 5-purge.

The performance of the scaled process was: N2-rich stream purity: 97.93%; CO2 purity: 83.10% and CO2
capture: 65.68%. The values are somewhat different from the benchmark experiments mainly due to thermal
effects (see the temperature oscillations are over 40K per cycle). Another important question to mention is that
the column capacity is almost the half of what can theoretically be and this factor is due to the very steep shape
of the CO2 isotherm at low pressures (very difficult CO2 desorption).

9
 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering
4th Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering

5. Conclusions
The sequestration of carbon dioxide from flue gases from coal-fired power centrals was studied. An ideal
mixture of 15% CO2 balanced by nitrogen was used to study the possibility of use Pressure Swing Adsorption
(PSA) process. Two different cycle configurations were evaluated in PSA benchmark experiments: 4-step cycle
with pressurization, feed, blowdown and purge and 5-step cycle with pressurization, feed, rinse, blowdown and
purge. Best CO2 purity (around) 80% was obtained with 66% CO2 capture. The 5-step configuration was scaled
up for continuous operation for CO2 sequestration from a 500KWh power central and simulated purity of 83.1%
with a capture of 65.7% were obtained using 3 column with 1370 kg of zeolite 13X each. The capture of CO2
sequestrated and concentrated to 83% could be higher than 2000 tons CO2 per year.

References
Da Silva FA. Cyclic Adsorption Processes: Application to Propane / Propylene Separation. University of Porto, Portugal,
Ph.D. thesis, 1999.
Grande, C. A.; Rodrigues, A. E. (2004) Adsorption of Binary Mixtures of Propane – Propylene in Carbon Molecular Sieve
4A. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 43, 8057-8065.
Iijima, M.; Ishida, K.; Takashina, T.; Tanaka, H.; Hirata, T.; Yonekawa, T. (2004) Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology for
Coal Fired Boiler. Paper presented at 7th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies.
Vancouver, Canada.
Kikkinides, E. S.; Yang, R. T.; Cho, S. K. (1993) Concentration and Recovery of CO2 from Flue Gas by Pressure Swing
Adsorption. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 32, 2714-2720.
Klara, S. Carbon Sequestration. Media Background Briefing. http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/Carbon%20Sequestration/
pubs/presentations/03KlaraCSLF6-16-03.pdf (accessed in 23/02/2005).
Ko D.; Siriwardane R.; Biegler L. T. (2003) Optimization of Pressure Swing Adsorption Process Using Zeolite 13X for CO2
Sequestration. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res,, 42, 339-348.
Nitta, T.; Shigetomi, T.; Kuro-Oka, M.; Katayama, T. (1984) An adsorption isotherm of multi-site occupancy model for
homogeneous surface. J. Chem. Eng. Japan, 17, 39-45.
Park, J. H.; Beum, H. T.; Kim, J. N.; Cho, S. H. (2002) Numerical Analysis on the Power Consumption of the PSA Process
for Recovering CO2 from Flue Gas. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 41, 4122-4131.
Rao, A. B.; Rubin, E. S. (2002) A Technical, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of Amine-Based CO2 Capture
Technology for Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Control. Environ. Sci. Technol., 36, 4467-4475.
Ruthven, D. M., Farooq, S., Knaebel, K. S. Pressure Swing Adsorption, VCH Publishers, New York, 1994.

Acknowledgments
Authors would like to thank financial support from Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), project
POCTI/2004/EQU/59330. C.A.G acknowledges FCT grant (SFRH/BPD/18888/2004).

10

View publication stats