TY - JOUR
T1 - Process design for the recovery of waste refrigerants using deep eutectic solvents
AU - Codera, V.
AU - Clijnk, D.
AU - Pou, J. O.
AU - Fernandez-Garcia, J.
AU - Llovell, F.
AU - Gonzalez-Olmos, R.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research is supported by projects STOP-F-Gas (PID2019–108014RB-C21) and NEW-F-TECH (TED2021–130959B-I00) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and by the project CIRCFGAS (2023-URL-Proj-053) funded by Department of Research and Universities of Generalitat de Catalunya and Universitat Ramon Llull. GESPA group has been recognized as Consolidated Research Group by the Catalan Government (2021 SGR 00321). The authors would like to acknowledge their gratitude to the students Santiago Gil from IQS, Elliott Boyd from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Matthew Brown from Imperial College London and Sara Juanita Prada from Universidad de La Sabana in Colombia for their assistance with the experiments and simulations.
Funding Information:
This research is supported by projects STOP-F-Gas ( PID2019–108014RB-C21 ) and NEW-F-TECH ( TED2021–130959B-I00 ) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and by the project CIRCFGAS ( 2023-URL-Proj-053 ) funded by Department of Research and Universities of Generalitat de Catalunya and Universitat Ramon Llull . GESPA group has been recognized as Consolidated Research Group by the Catalan Government (2021 SGR 00321). The authors would like to acknowledge their gratitude to the students Santiago Gil from IQS, Elliott Boyd from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Matthew Brown from Imperial College London and Sara Juanita Prada from Universidad de La Sabana in Colombia for their assistance with the experiments and simulations.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - The environmental impact on climate change of fluorinated gases (F-gases), used mainly in refrigeration applications, is boosting the search of new recovery processes that would allow their reuse in a circular economy framework. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been recently proposed as alternative absorbents in separation processes because they present several advantages, such as lower price and toxicity, in comparison with other traditional absorbents such as ionic liquids. In this work, the gas solubility of four common F-gases in different choline chloride (ChCl)-based DESs has been studied. In general, the observed gas solubility followed the next trend with the studied DESs: R-32 >R-134a>R-125 >R-143a. The affinity of the DESs for the studied F-gases was higher for ChCl:EG (1:3) than for ChCl:Gly (1:3) (10% H2O). The DESs showed good ideal selectivity for the separation of binary mixtures containing the studied F-gases. A separation process for R-410A (a 50% (w/w) mixture of R-32 and R-125) using two absorption columns was proposed and simulated with Aspen Plus using experimental data. It was found that the DESs were valid to separate R-125 with high purity (>98% w/w) and that in the case of ChCl:Gly (1:3) (10% H2O) it was possible to be recovered with high purity (>98%) and recovery (>98%) both F-gases. This work represents a step forward in the study of alternative absorbents, such as DESs, for the separation of commercial refrigerants (F-gases mixtures) for its further reuse in a circular economy context.
AB - The environmental impact on climate change of fluorinated gases (F-gases), used mainly in refrigeration applications, is boosting the search of new recovery processes that would allow their reuse in a circular economy framework. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been recently proposed as alternative absorbents in separation processes because they present several advantages, such as lower price and toxicity, in comparison with other traditional absorbents such as ionic liquids. In this work, the gas solubility of four common F-gases in different choline chloride (ChCl)-based DESs has been studied. In general, the observed gas solubility followed the next trend with the studied DESs: R-32 >R-134a>R-125 >R-143a. The affinity of the DESs for the studied F-gases was higher for ChCl:EG (1:3) than for ChCl:Gly (1:3) (10% H2O). The DESs showed good ideal selectivity for the separation of binary mixtures containing the studied F-gases. A separation process for R-410A (a 50% (w/w) mixture of R-32 and R-125) using two absorption columns was proposed and simulated with Aspen Plus using experimental data. It was found that the DESs were valid to separate R-125 with high purity (>98% w/w) and that in the case of ChCl:Gly (1:3) (10% H2O) it was possible to be recovered with high purity (>98%) and recovery (>98%) both F-gases. This work represents a step forward in the study of alternative absorbents, such as DESs, for the separation of commercial refrigerants (F-gases mixtures) for its further reuse in a circular economy context.
KW - Circular Economy
KW - Deep eutectic solvents
KW - Fluorinated gases
KW - Greenhouse gases
KW - Refrigerants
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85162171194&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jece.2023.110255
DO - 10.1016/j.jece.2023.110255
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85162171194
SN - 2213-3437
VL - 11
JO - Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
JF - Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
IS - 3
M1 - 110255
ER -