A radial flow contactor for ambient air CO2 capture

Abstract

Direct air capture (DAC) of CO2 can address CO2 emissions from distributed sources and produce CO2 from air virtually anywhere that it is needed. In this paper, the performance of a new radial flow reactor (RFR) for CO2 adsorption from ambient air is reported. The reactor uses a supported amine sorbent and is operated in a batch mode of operation or semi-continuously, respectively without or with sorbent circulation. The radial flow reactor, containing 2 kg of the adsorbent, is successfully scaled up from the experimental results obtained with a fixed bed reactor using only 1 g of the adsorbent. In the batch operation mode, the sorbent in the annular space of the RFR is regenerated in situ. With sorbent circulation, the RFR is loaded and unloaded batchwise and only used as an adsorber. A sorbent batch loaded with CO2 is transported to and regenerated in an external (fluid bed) regenerator. The RFR unit is characterized by a low contacting energy (0.7-1.5 GJ/ton-CO2) and a relatively short adsorption time (24-43 min) compared to other DAC processes using the same types of sorbents. The contactor concept is ready for further scale-up and continuous application.