Performance study on Ca-based sorbents for sequential CO2 and SO2 capture in a bubbling fluidised bed

High temperature CO2 and SO2 sequential capture in a bubbling fluidised bed was investigated using a natural limestone and synthetic composite pellets. Calcination was conducted under oxy-combustion conditions, while carbonation and sulphation occurred in an air-combustion atmosphere. The goal of sequential capture of CO2/SO2 is to desulphurise the flue gas first, followed by cyclic carbonation and calcination. Here, fresh sorbent is first used in the cyclic calcination/carbonation process and then the spent sorbent is sent for sulphation.
The pellet carrying capacity is 0.29 g CO2/g sorbents for the first cycle, while that of natural limestone is about 0.45 g CO2/g sorbents. The carrying capacity first fell and then finally plateaued around 0.10 and 0.12 g CO2/g sorbents for limestone and pellets respectively. The SO2 carrying capacity for limestone and pellets after 20 cycles of CO2 capture was 0.17 and 0.22 g SO2/g sorbents respectively. This indicates that the sorbent spent in CO2 capture can be effectively reused for SO2 removal. Abrasion was observed to be the main mode of attrition, but some agglomeration was also found with increasing number of cycles and this may be a concern in the use of Ca-based sorbent for CO2 or SO2 fluidised bed capture.