Edinburgh team to research compact amine-based carbon capture

Rotating packed bed absorption and microwave-assisted regeneration will enable small devices to be installed at sites where using a large centralised system to capture CO₂ is inefficient as emission points are spread throughout the facility.

The EPSRC is backing the three-year £1.2m project, led by Edinburgh University, which will look at the issues surrounding the use of amine solvents for CO₂ capture.

­Principal investigator Dr Xianfeng Fan, from the university’s School of Engineering, told The Engineer: “We have tried to develop something with quite a small size and high efficiency, so we don’t use the traditional absorber and desorber.

“We use a rotating packed bed absorber, and that can reduce the size by 90 per cent," said Dr Fan. "The size depends on the size of the plant. Normally for an absorber it is about 20m high, and for that we will use a  rotating bed with a diameter of less than 2m.”

Rather than creating a bubble to absorb the CO_2, the rotating bed creates a film with a larger surface area with which to make contact with the gas, which speeds up the transfer.