Kinetic study on promoted potassium carbonate solutions for CO2 capture from flue gas

Two different reactors were used to gather information about the kinetics of promoted potassium carbonate solutions for CO2 capture from flue gas. A bubble reactor was used to enable the fast evaluation of a wide rang of different solutions under a defined variation of experimental parameters as temperature and gas flow rate. Apart from the documentation of the CO2 absorption rate the bubble reactor also provided the possibility of a simultaneous documentation of the pH-value of the evaluated solution during the absorption process. These experiments underlined that the pH-value can be used as an indicator for the loading of a known solution during a absorption process. Secondly a wetted wall column reactor was used to obtain kinetic data of gas molecules on a clearly defined liquid surface. A variation of the experimental parameters as pressure, temperature and composition of the phases enables a process-steering in and out of chemical equilibrium. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.