Absorber model for CO2 capture by monoethanolamine — application to CASTOR pilot results

The monoethanolamine CO2 capture campaign of the CASTOR project was completed in January 2007. It consisted of 12 runs utilizing varying solvent flow rates and lean loading. Experiments utilized an insulated 1.1 meter diameter absorber which contained four 4.25 meter beds of IMTP-50 packing. In addition to a multitude of other measurements, gas phase temperature and CO2 concentrations were obtained at the five locations around the four beds of packing.An Aspen Plus® RateSep™ absorber model was created to simulate the 12 runs. Although the predicted gas phase temperature profiles were slightly higher in the simulations, the model successfully represented both gas phase temperature and CO2 profiles in the absorber. The model was not forced to fit the pilot plant data.