Energy dissipation evaluation of temperature swing adsorption (TSA) cycle based on thermodynamic entropy insights

Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 12;9(1):16599. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-53398-6.

Abstract

The special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) on global warming of 1.5 °C marks a critical point in climate negotiations, which emphasizes the importance to control the CO2 level in the atmosphere. The current technology cluster of CO2 capture is still energy-intensive which results in a substantial increase in costs, thus the efficient conversion among various forms of energy is the major topic of research. Considering that most of the existing research are primarily based on the viewpoint of energy conservation on a specific case study, the results thus could not be efficiently generalized as a condensed mechanism of energy dissipation. In this work, the entropy generation evaluation of a 4-step temperature swing adsorption (TSA) process was presented as a sample. The values and contribution distributions of various entropy generation in the thermodynamic cycle were calculated to evaluate the major energy dissipation. The results on contribution distribution of entropy generation and heat required were compared, the entropy generation distribution contributed by heat transfer decreases from 63.27% to 53.72% with internal heat recovery (IHR) method integrated. Thus the entropy generation saving potential of IHR method could be proved.