An experimental study was conducted in a sieve tray column. This study used a simulated flue gas consisting of 30% CO2 and 70%. A 10% mass fraction of methyl diethanolamine (MDEA) aqueous solution was used as a solvent. Three ramp-up tests were performed to investigate the effect of different load changes in inlet gas and solvent flow rate on CO2 absorption. The rate of change in gas flow rate was 0.1 Nm3/h/s, and the rate of change in MDEA aqueous solution was about 0.7 NL/h/s. It was found that different load changes in inlet gas and solvent flow rate significantly affect the CO2 volume fraction at the outlet during the transient state. The CO2 volume fraction reaches a peak value during the transient state. The effect of different load changes in inlet gas and solvent flow rate on the hydrodynamic properties of the sieve tray were also investigated. The authors studied the correlation between the performance of the absorber column for CO2 capture during the transient state and the hydrodynamic properties of the sieve tray. In addition, this paper presents an experimental investigation of the bubble-liquid interaction as a contributor to entropy generation on a sieve tray in the absorption column used for CO2 absorption during the transient state of different load changes.
Keywords: CO2 absorption; entropy generation; experimental study; liquid holdup; liquid holdup level; tray pressure drop.