Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide using "Higee"

In view of the current CO₂ emission legislation many companies are becoming interested in new technology which will allow them to capture and the sequester CO₂ which is present in stack gases. As the Norwegian government is taking this issue very seriously, Norsk Hydro has supported a 3-year experimental programme at Newcastle to demonstrate the use of Monoethanolamine solutions to absorb CO₂ from simulated flue gases. The equipment used is the rotating packed bed (Higee) gas/liquid contactor which was conceived and developed by Ramshaw in the 1980's when he was at ICI.

The unit comprises a rotor 45cm OD with an axial packing thickness of 2.5cm. The effective radial packing depth is 12cm and the rotor speed is varied up to 1000 RPM. CO₂ recoveries up to 99% were achieved. This technology is particularly relevant to offshore exploitation in view of the very compact nature of the Higee configuration. A further development under construction involves an integral reboiler for steam generation.

Fig. 1 - New pilot scale facility to test amines for CO2 capture

Fig. 2 - Rotating Packed Bed