Numerical parametric study on CO2 capture by indirect thermal swing adsorption

Post-combustion CO₂ capture remains one of the most-challenging issue to lower CO₂ emissions of existing power plants or heavy industry installations because of strong economy and energy efficiency aspects. The major issue comes from CO₂ dilution (4% for NGCC and 14% for PC) and the high flow rates to be treated. Furthermore, CO₂ purity has to be higher than 95% with recovery at 90%, to match the transportation/injection requirements.The MEA absorption process remains the reference today but its energy consumption (about 3 MJ/kg_CO2) and the amine consumption are still challenging drawbacks.The interest of CO₂ capture by indirect TSA (Temperature Swing Adsorption) was demonstrated experimentally in a previous work. The aim of this paper is to present the results of a numerical parametric study. Two main parameters are explored: the desorption temperature (100–200 °C) and the purge flow rate (0.1–0.5 Ndm³ min⁻¹). Four performance indicators are evaluated: CO₂ purity, recovery, productivity and specific energy consumption.Results show that purity above 95% can be achieved. Keeping the 95% target, it is possible to achieve recovery at 81% with productivity at 57.7 g_CO2/kg_ads h and a specific energy consumption of 3.23 MJ/kg_CO2, which is less than for the reference MEA process.Comparison with other adsorption processes exhibits that this process has good potential especially since some improvements are still expected from further research.