(317d) Pressure Swing Adsoprtion: Design and Optimization for Pre-Combustion Carbon Capture

Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) is an
efficient method for gas separation, and is a potential candidate for
carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture from power plants. However,
few PSA cycles have been designed for this purpose and the
optimization of PSA systems for CO₂ capture remains a very
challenging task. In this study, we present a systematic
optimization-based formulation for the synthesis and design of novel
PSA cycles for CO₂ capture in an IGCC flowsheet, which can
simultaneously produce hydrogen (H₂) and CO₂ at
a high purity. Here, we apply a superstructure-based approach to
simultaneously determine optimal cycle configurations and design
parameters for PSA units. This approach integrates automatic
differentiation, efficient ODE solvers for the state and sensitivity
equations of the PSA model and state of the art NLP solvers. Three
optimization formulations are proposed and two PSA case studies are
considered. The first case study considers a binary separation of H₂
and CO₂ at high purity, where specific energy is
minimized, while the second considers a larger five component
separation.