Meso-scale CFD Modelling of CO2 Capture by Aqueous Ammonia Part I: Modeling

Abstract

This paper reports numerical modelling and simulation of carbon dioxide capture from flue gases by aqueous ammonia solution as an absorbent. The simulation of the complex flows is mainly for the low efficiency of the present post-combustion capture technology, which includes a countercurrent two-phase flow considering chemical reaction between CO2 and NH3 solution in representative elementary units (REU) of structured packed column. Then, we compared the CO2 absorption between two REUs model and single REU model, the results show that more contact time means higher absorption rate. Furthermore, the feasibility of the model is checked over different operating parameters in the Part II. Based on the simulation, we can achieve the optimized design to the process parameters.