Determination of reactive mass transfer coefficients for CO2 absorption predictions

Absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) by solvents is an important process in many practical applications such as capture of greenhouse gases from flue gas, gas processing in the chemical and petroleum industries, capture of radioactive isotopes in the nuclear cycle, etc. High pH alkaline solutions were used in this research project to capture CO2. The chemical reaction between CO2 and the hydroxyl ion is known to significantly increase the absorption rate compared to the same process without chemical reaction. The goal of this work is to study the influence of the chemical reaction on the absorption rate. For this purpose, the gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient was measured under reactive and nonreactive conditions. Reactive mass transfer coefficient values were higher than similar ones without chemical reaction. Under the operating conditions used in this work, the mass transfer process was found to be controlled by the liquid phase resistance.