Rate based modeling and validation of a carbon-dioxide pilot plant absorbtion column operating on monoethanolamine

In-silico amine screening is a fast, low-cost and promising way of efficiently evaluating new amine molecules which are proposed for carbon-dioxide capture purposes. In order to implement the screening environment, reliable and robust absorber models are required. This contribution presents the modeling and validation results of a CO2 capture pilot absorber operated with monoethanolamine (MEA), as the first step of the in-silico solvent screening framework. The simulation results have shown that the outlet amine loading can be predicted with a 10% deviation from the experimental values for one column, with larger deviations for the second. In addition the model was extended to include the calculation of the overall mass transfer coefficient from laboratory based wetted-wall experiments completed at CSIRO Newcastle, Australia. This further improved the overall model prediction and significantly reduced the amine loading prediction error for the column 1. Note that no parameter fitting was performed on the pilot plant experimental data, other than to include a heat loss to the atmosphere term, and the model relies entirely on engineering and property correlations available in the scientific literature. (C) 2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.