ASPEN PLUS simulation model for CO2 removal with MEA: Validation of desorption model with experimental data

The chemical absorption process has been extensively studied as one of the main carbon capture and separation technologies. This process comprises two stages: The absorption of CO2 into the solvent and the desorption, to regenerate the solvent and produce the high concentrated CO2 gas. Validated simulation models are essential for the scale-up of the chemical absorption process and they are typically validated using only data from one pilot plant. In this work, a simulation model of the desorption column built in ASPEN PLUS v8.6 was validated using four experimental pilot campaigns using 30 wt% MEA. The desorbers in the different campaigns varied in the diameters, structured packing heights and packing types. A good agreement is observed between experimental data and the simulation results of the chemical absorption process presented here. The model shows an AARD (average absolute relative deviation) of 9.2% for the CO2 stripped (kg/h) for the tested 78 experimental runs. The simulated temperatures of the liquid flux leaving the reboiler show a deviation of 3.3% compared with the experimental data. The deviations on the estimation of the CO2 stripped show some dependency on the CO2 loading in the rich amine flux entering the desorber. However, the deviations are independent on the temperature of the rich amine.