ABSTRACT:
Interest in recovery of carbon dioxide (CO2) from flue gases is being propelled by multiple factors: the merchant CO2 market, renewed interest in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), and the desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Benfield process uses hot potassium carbonate solution to absorb CO2 from the flue gas. It is carried out in a packed absorption column, the absorbed CO2 in potassium carbonate solution is then removed by distillation and the recovered potassium carbonate solution is recycled. The Benfield process for CO2 removal has been modeled and simulated using CHEMCAD software package (version 5.1.0 release 2000). The simulation result shows that the CO2 in the feed stream was almost entirely absorbed in the absorption column with the help of potassium carbonate. The amount of CO2 was reduced from 117.59 kmol/h (feed stream) to 0.07 kmol/h (purified gas stream).The evolutions of the process parameters were studied during the process. The mathematical model and the simulation results, using CHEMCAD, proved to be a reliable tool for analyzing the process of removing CO2 from the feed gas.