(631c) Modeling of Carbon Dioxide Absorption/desorption In Amine Solutions

Design of packed scrubbers for CO2 capture by amine solutions requires accurate solution to local differential mass balances. Because the analysis is complicated by complex reaction kinetics, solutions are typically obtained via computationally intensive numerical methods. However, the kinetic terms in the ordinary differential equations associated with Film Theory may be linearized by either of two different techniques with negligible loss of accuracy. One approach fixes the concentration of nonvolatile reactants at their (unknown) values at the gas-liquid interface. The other approach assumes that departures from local reaction equilibrium are small. We present results here that demonstrate high accuracy when either linearization technique is applied to the analysis of CO2 absorption in and desorption from amine solutions.