Integrated two‐stage adsorption for selective removal of CO2 and SO2 by amine‐functionalized SBA‐15

Abstract A novel process for integrated two‐stage selective removal of CO2 and SO2 from a simulated flue gas by an adsorption method was developed. Triethylolamine (TEA)‐loaded SBA‐15 was selected as the SO2 adsorbent, and tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA)‐loaded SBA‐15 was the CO2 adsorbent. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, N2 adsorption/desorption, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction techniques were used to characterize the properties of the adsorbents. The effects of the height–diameter ratio (H/D) of the adsorbent bed and operation temperature were tested for the removal of SO2. The results indicated that the pore volume and surface area of SBA‐15‐TEA‐50 and SBA‐15‐TEPA‐50 dropped with the increase of amine loading. SO2 breakthrough adsorption capacity of SBA‐15‐TEA‐50 was 146.3 mg of SO2/(g of adsorbent). The integrated two‐stage removal experiment of SO2 and CO2 over SBA‐15‐TEA and SBA‐15‐TEPA showed that CO2 and SO2 in gas mixture can be removed in two stages, respectively. Regeneration experiment showed that both the SO2 and CO2 breakthrough capacity almost kept a constant in the multiple cycles, and the regeneration of integrated two‐stage system was stable. © 2017 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.