Experimental study on capture of carbon dioxide and production of sodium bicarbonate from sodium hydroxide

Abstract

Global warming due to greenhouse gases is an issue of great concern today. Fossil fuel power plants, especially coal-fired thermal power plants, are a major source of carbon dioxide emission. In this work, carbon capture and utilization using sodium hydroxide was studied experimentally. Application for flue gas of a coal-fired power plant is considered. Carbon dioxide, reacting with an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide, could be converted to sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). A bench-scale unit of a reactor system was designed for this experiment. The capture scale of the reactor system was 2 kg of carbon dioxide per day. The detailed operational condition could be determined. The purity of produced sodium bicarbonate was above 97% and the absorption rate of CO2 was above 95% through the experiment using this reactor system. The results obtained in this experiment contain useful information for the construction and operation of a commercial-scale plant. Through this experiment, the possibility of carbon capture for coal power plants using sodium hydroxide could be confirmed.