Carbon dioxide capture from flue gas at Michigan tech central energy plant

Carbon dioxide, a byproduct of combustion reactions, is a greenhouse gas linked to climate change. At Michigan Technological University, we have studied the capture of CO₂ using alkali scrubbing solutions in a pilot scale packed bed counter-current scrubbing column. To do this, we have simulated flue gas by combining streams of CO₂ and compressed air. Real flue gas has impurities such as CO, SO₂, and NOx, and has lower levels of O₂ than our simulated flue gas. In order to study CO₂ capture from a real flue gas, the Department of Chemical Engineering worked with the Facilities department to install a pilot scale scrubbing column in the Michigan Tech steam plant. Experiments were conducted using a sample stream of the flue gas from the boiler in the steam plant. Data collected from these experiments were compared to the data collected from identical experiments conducted on simulated flue gas in the lab. The capture efficiency of the real flue gas scrubbing column is discussed in this paper.