Performance of CO2 absorption in a diameter-varying spray tower

The application of spray towers for CO2 capture is a development trend in recent years. However, most of the previous jobs were conducted in a cylindrical tower by using a single spray nozzle, whose configuration and performance is not good enough for industrial application. To solve this problem, the present work proposed a diameter-varying spray tower and a new spray mode of dual-nozzle opposed impinging spray to enhance the heat and mass transfer of CO2 absorption process. Experiments were performed to investigate the mass transfer performance (in terms of the CO2 removal rate (eta) and the overall mass transfer coefficient (KGae)) of the improved spray tower under various operating conditions. Experimental results showed that the liquid to gas ratio andmole ratio ofMEA to CO2 aremajor factors, which affect the absorption performance and themaximums of. and KGae that are 94.0% and 0.574 kmol . m(-3) . h(-1) . kPa(-1), respectively, under the experimental conditions. Furthermore, new correlations to predict the mass transfer coefficient of the proposed spray tower are developed in various CO2 concentrations with a Pearson Correlation Coefficient over 90%. (C) 2017 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.