A New Equilibrium Shortcut Temperature Swing Adsorption Model for Fast Adsorbent Screening

A simplified temperature swing adsorption (TSA) model is presented for a three-step cycle with open cooling. The model is developed for rapid screening of adsorbents for the recovery of the strongly adsorbed species from a gas mixture. Four indicators-purity, recovery, specific thermal energy demand, and cyclic working capacity-are used to evaluate adsorbent performance. The shortcut model is validated by comparing with results from a detailed adsorption column model and found to be in good agreement: all performance indicators were within 14% of the detailed model predictions. The model is applied for extensive parametric screening of zeolite 13X and 75 other real and hypothetical adsorbents for post-combustion CO2 capture. The results provide useful insights into the dependence of performance indicators on operating conditions. Each run of the shortcut model solves in less than 0.04 s on a standard desktop computer. The computational speed and accuracy of the model make it ideal for large-scale screening exercises to identify novel adsorbents for gas separation by TSA and for extensive parametric analysis to identify suitable operating conditions.