CO2 capture using the clathrate hydrate process employing cellulose foam as a porous media

A new biodegradable porous medium has been employed in this work for the hydrate-based gas separation (HBGS) process to capture carbon dioxide in a fixed bed column from a precombustion stream. Propane (2.5 mol%) was added as a promoter to reduce the operating pressure of the HBGS process. Experiments were conducted at 6 MPa and 274.2 K at different water saturation levels (50% and 100%) in a cellulose foam bed. It was found that a normalized rate of hydrate formation was more than double for 50% as compared to 100% water-saturated level. In addition, kinetic modelling of hydrate formation in porous media has been carried out using Avrami model by utilizing the experimental gas uptake data from current and published works. The Avrami model was found to fit the hydrate growth kinetics very well, up to 40 min of hydrate growth for different porous media like silica sand, polyurethane foam, and cellulose foam, and for different guest gas and gas mixtures.