Mass-Transfer Performance for CO2 Absorption by 2-(2-Aminoethylamino)ethanol Solution in a Rotating Packed Bed

The emission of CO2 is leading to serious global climate change, which has attracted increasing attention. In this work, a rotating packed bed (RPB) was employed as a highly effective reactor to intensify the CO2 absorption in an alkanolamine solution that mainly contained 2-(2-aminoethylamino)ethanol (AEEA). The effects of important operating conditions, such as high gravity level, amine solvent concentration, gas/liquid flow ratio, CO2 inlet concentration, absorption temperature, and CO2 loading in the amine solvent, on the gas-phase volumetric mass-transfer coefficient (K(G)a) and CO2 capture efficiency were investigated. The results indicated that the high gravity level and CO2 inlet concentration had significant effects on K(G)a, and the experimental value of K(G)a was found to be about 1.42-2.86 kmol-m(-3).h(-1).kPa(-1) in the RPB, which is an order of magnitude higher than that in a conventional packed column. Furthermore, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was applied to predict the mass-transfer performance. The values predicted using the ANN model were in good agreement with the experimental data (+/- 10%).