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Title: Carbon dioxide adsorption in Brazilian coals

Journal Article · · Energy and Fuels
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/ef060149h· OSTI ID:20862166
; ; ; ;  [1]
  1. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis SC (Brazil). Departamento de Engenharia Quimica e Engenharia de Alimentos

Carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) is one of the most important greenhouse gases. In the period between 1980 and 1998, CO{sub 2} emissions increased more than 21% and projections suggest that the emissions will continue to increase globally by 2.2% between 2000 and 2020 and 3.3% in the developed countries. The sequestration of CO{sub 2} in deep unminable coal beds is one of the more promising of several methods of geological sequestration that are currently being investigated. CO{sub 2} can adsorb onto coal, and there are several studies demonstrating that CO{sub 2} dissolves in coals and swells them. At very low pressures (P {lt} 1 bar), CO{sub 2} dissolution does not seem to be a problem; however, high pressures are necessary for CO{sub 2} sequestration (P {gt} 50 bar). In this study, we evaluated the kinetics and equilibrium of sorption of CO{sub 2} on Brazilian coals at low pressures. The adsorption equilibrium isotherm at room temperature (30{sup o}C) was measured through the static method. The results showed that the Freundlich model or the Langmuir model is suitable to describe the equilibrium experimental results. The CO{sub 2} adsorption capacity of Brazilian coals are in the range of 0.089-0.186 mmol CO{sub 2}/g, which are typical values for coals with high ash content. The dynamics of adsorption in a fixed-bed column that contains granular coal (particle sizes of 0.8, 2.4, and 4.8 mm) showed that the adsorption rate is fast and a mathematical model was developed to describe the CO{sub 2} dynamics of the adsorption in a fixed-bed column. The linear driving force (LDF) was used to describe the rate of adsorption and the mass-transfer constants of the LDF model (K{sub s}) are in the range of 1.0-2.0 min{sup -1}. 29 refs., 5 figs., 3 tabs.

OSTI ID:
20862166
Journal Information:
Energy and Fuels, Vol. 21, Issue 1; Other Information: regina@enq.ufsc.br; ISSN 0887-0624
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English