Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration by adsorption on activated carbon

Abstract

Activated Carbon (AC) materials was selected as suitable adsorbent for the carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and a numerical analysis was carried out to study the rate of adsorption of the gas on ACs. A one dimensional mathematical model was proposed based on the Dubinin's Theory of Volume Filling of Micropores, and analyzed along with the unsteady heat transfer. A parametric analysis was carried out to study the effect of various crucial parameters like radius of bed, cooling fluid temperature, initial bed temperature and heat transfer coefficient on the adsorption amount. The results show that lower bed radius was ideal for obtaining high amount of CO2 adsorbed assuming constant packing density. Also, a high heat transfer coefficient up to 100 Wm-2K-1 and low cooling fluid temperature of 283 K was necessary for speeding up the process. High initial bed temperature also supports greater adsorption amount under the same conditions. © 2014 The Authors.