Rotating bed adsorber system for carbon dioxide capture from flue gas

The increasing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants can be reduced by capturing CO2 from flue gases by means of adsorption, a post combustion capture method. An on-site experiment conducted at a flue gas duct of a 500 MW thermal power plant using activated carbon and zeolite samples revealed a sharp drop in the CO2 concentration from 10.6% to 2.4%. Based on this study, a rotating bed adsorber (RBA) system following the combined principles of pressure and temperature swing adsorption is proposed as a viable CO2 capture process. This can be fitted to the existing flue gas duct before the chimney. The RBA consists of disc-shaped adsorbent sheets with parallel passages which are divided into four sectors. At any instant, two of the sectors are exposed to flue gas, while the other two remain in the de-sorption chamber. The de-sorption chamber consists of a heating section which is maintained under vacuum and a cooling section. The effect of the RBA system on the efficiency of a 500 MW thermal power plant was also investigated.