(60m) Analysis of Correlation between Microbubble and Precipitated Calcium Carbonate Size Using Image Processing Model for Carbon Utilization Process

Recently, research on the production process of precipitation calcium carbonate (PCC) through mineral carbonation has been active in developing efficient CO₂ capture and utilization technologies. In particular, it draws attention to the study of PCC particle size control by generating microbubbles (MB) in a carbonation reactor. MB has a large interfacial area between gas and liquid, resulting in high mass transfer efficiency and a significant improvement in PCC production efficiency [1]. However, it was hard to analyze the correlation between the size of MB and PCC particles due to the difficulty in measuring and controlling MB size. In this study, we analyze the correlation between the size of the MB and PCC particle size using an MB carbonation reactor with controllable MB size. In addition, PCC production process economic analysis was conducted by applying the MB carbonation reactor. The MB size determined utilized an OpenCV-Python image processing algorithm, and the economic analysis was compared to the typical process using the unit cost per production unit. As a result, the size of MB decreased as the RPM of the shear mixer in the reactor increased, resulting in a decrease in the final size of the PCC particles, and the process development with the MB carbonization reactor increased the profit by about 25%. Finally, this result is expected to improve PCC production efficiency.