SIMULATION ANALYSIS ON SO2 REDUCTION INSIDE A SEAWATER SCRUBBER

The marine industry is one of the industrial sectors that release sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the atmosphere as a result of heavy fuel oil's combustion as an energy source. Generally, flue gas desulphurization method has been used to control the SO2 emission where seawater used as the alkaline slurry. However, usually the gas velocity at the scrubber's wall is moderately high that could contribute to the uneven distribution of liquid droplets over the entire domain surface, and consequently can affect the amount of SO2 reduction released. Hence, the purpose of this study is to observe the gas flow pattern in the scrubber and to determine the effect of a spray nozzle angle on the SO2 reduction released. The scrubber with 4.46 m in the height, 1.35 m in the diameter and spray nozzle angle between 80-120 degrees was designed using Ansys Fluent (c) version 17.2. Three factors which are gas velocity, pressure, and temperature of gas were studied to achieve the optimum SO2 reduction. The simulation result shows the declination trend in these three factors on the gas distribution as the angle of the spray nozzle is increased. The percentage of SO2 reduction is increased up to 17 % for the spray nozzle angle between 80-120 degrees.