A fast methodology to rank adsorbents for CO₂ capture with temperature swing adsorption

A new methodology for evaluating different commercial adsorbents for CO₂ capture using temperature swing adsorption (TSA) has been developed. The screening method is based on thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) combined with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to study the cyclic behavior of adsorbents paying attention on CO₂ production and desorption energy. CO₂ production and desorption energy were determined for commercial zeolites using a simulated flue gas (15% CO₂ / 85% N₂ v/v). Binderless zeolites had better CO₂ production and lower desorption energy on TSA cycles than their analog binder-based zeolites. The zeolite with the highest CO₂ production (0.077 kg_CO2/kg_ads٠h) and the lowest desorption energy (0.56 kWh/kg_CO2) was the 13XBL binderless zeolite. On the other side, the 5A zeolites (binder and binderless) had the lowest CO₂ production (0.046–0.054 kg_CO2/kg_ads٠h) and the highest desorption energy (0.78–0.93 kWh/kg_CO2) among zeolites. Results obtained demonstrated that the proposed methodology is a good basis for the fast selection of the best adsorbent and for the selection of the adsorption and desorption cycling temperatures in CO₂ capture processes through TSA.