Kinetic Evaluation of Cyclopentane as a Promoter for CO2 Capture via a Clathrate Process Employing Different Contact Modes

In order to mitigate global warming with growing demands on fossil fuels, it is essential to reduce CO2 emissions from the energy sector. Hydrate-based CO2 capture from fuel gas mixture (40% CO2/60% H2) is one of the options to reduce the carbon footprint of power plants. This work employed cyclopentane (CP) as a promoter and investigated the kinetic performance of CP/CO2/H2 hydrate formation with two different contact modes using an unstirred tank reactor (UTR) and a fixed bed reactor (FBR) at 281.2 K and 6.0 MPa. Repeat cycles were conducted to examine the recyclability of reactants. Compared with UTR, FBR showed a higher hydrate formation rate and improved the gas uptake by enhancing the dissolution phase. A distinctive two-stage hydrate growth was observed in UTR. Morphology observations were coupled with kinetic data to present the characteristic growth behavior of CP/CO2/H2 hydrate. Furthermore, the scalability of the hydrate formation process was examined. A FBR approach employing a tray column des...