(355d) Solar Thermal Energy-Based High Purity CO2 Release From Carbonate Sorbents

Abstract

           The increase of the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere is a major cause of concern in the conservation of nature and in saving the world from natural disaster which follows atmospheric pollution. Reducing CO₂ emissions for addressing climate change becomes increasingly important as CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere has been increasing rapidly, although procedures and measures have been taken to decrease or prevent the increase of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. Recycling CO₂ with hydrogen for the production of fuels rather than taking it as a waste is a promising option for our future sustainability development. The subsequent release of the CO₂ after it is captured in a sorbent can be combined with a highly chemical bond energy compound to produce biofuel. This requires a high purity of CO₂ for the fuel synthesis. This paper focuses on the high purity CO₂ release from its sorbents after they capture the CO₂ emissions from an industrial plant.

           Thermodynamic analysis is performed in this paper involving the enthalpy changes, the total heat required for the sorbent decomposition at various temperatures, and the maximum heat required by the decomposition with the release kinetics of sorbents are also investigated theoretically.

 The present work also concerns with experimentally studying the release of high purity of CO₂ from different carbonates such as MgCO₃, NaHCO₃, Na2CO₃, CaCO₃ and KHCO₃, using a direct concentrated solar thermal energy. Practically, a solar experimental loop has been used in a solar solarium system to investigate the effects of solar thermal energy and the radiation intensity on the chemical composition profile and the amount of CO₂ released at different temperatures, time intervals, and the total heat required for decomposition of NaHCO₃, KHCO₃ and MgCO₃ to release pure CO2, the results were compared with the theoretical investigations.