ABSORBER PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT THROUGH SOLVENT CONCENTRATION CHANGES TO REGULATE EMISSIONS FROM COMBUSTION SYSTEMS
This work highlighted the determination of the best concentration profile for the operation of an absorber with potential to cut down combustion products emissions from the complete combustion reaction scheme of a combustion system waste stream. The proposed solvent concentration had a range of 1.84%-2.20% of caustic entrainment, therefore further increase on the solvent concentration above 2.20% is not feasible. Incremental changes of 0.06% were made to assess the optimal concentration required for best absorber performance. A process simulation software, ASPEN HYSYS 8.6, was utilized to simulate the emissions profile with PENG-ROBINSON as the Vapour-Liquid Equilibrium evaluation tool in the software. The study found the performance of the absorber improved with a corresponding increase in the concentration with 2.20% giving the most efficient removal rate of 61.59%, 26.5% and 85.2% for SO2, CO2 and NO2, respectively. The study recommended that one veritable method of improving the performance of absorber systems is to increase the concentration of the alkali based solvent to cut down on emissions from flue gas systems.