(616e) Minimum Work Analysis of Adsorption Applied to TSA and Chemical Looping Processes for Carbon Capture

: In this work the minimum work of separation for adsorption processes is derived. By using the second law of thermodynamics the equivalent work of separation for CO₂ capture is derived for temperature swing adsorption processes (TSA) and calcium looping processes (CLP). Comparing the TSA process using zeolite 13x and the CLP process using calcium oxide (CaO) with complete conversion rate for every cycle, it was found out the CLP process requires less equivalent work when the initial CO2 concentration (y₀) of the flue gas is lower than 10% while the TSA process is more competitive when y₀ is higher than 10%. After the degradation of CaO is taking into consideration the TSA process using zeolite 13x becomes favorable over an even larger window of y₀, around 5%.

Keywords: work of separation, temperature swing adsorption, calcium looping processes, carbon capture, equivalent work

* Corresponding author, email address: hsc0@lehigh.edu