CO2 ABSORPTION USING PRESSURIZED WATER FOR BIOGAS PURIFICATION INTO BIOMETHANE

• Main Author: Hafidz Abdulaziz, Bryan
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik kimia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/65863
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Biogas is a renewable energy source that can be used as an alternative fuel in many applications. Being the largest oil palm producer in the world, Indonesia has a potential source for producing biogas, which is Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME). Biogas can be purified further into biomethane which has higher energy value. Biogas purification methods such as CO2 separation can be done using absorption with pressurized water. Sparse implementation of biogas upgrading in Indonesia presents an opportunity to research biogas purification especially using pressurized water technology. CO2 absorption using pressurized water is done using a counter-current configuration in a packed column filled with raschig rings packings. The gas feed used in this research has a composition of 60% CH4 and 40% CO2. gas analyzer is used to analyze the contents of the output gas. The variations in this experiments include operational pressure, gas flow rate, and water flow rate. It is found that a pressure increase in L/G ratio range of 4,2 – 8,3 will increase CH4 purity in biomethane, ranging from 78 – 85% in pressure of 9 bar and 82 – 89% in pressure of 10 bar. Increase in L/G ratio in pressure of 9 – 10 bar will increase CH4 purity in biomethane, reaching a maximum of 89% with L/G ratio of 8,3. Increase in L/G ratio, however, exacerbates CH4 loss. Thus, it is prudent to limit the L/G ratio up to 2,3 to keep CH4 loss under 5%. An absorption column of 13 stages with HETP of 0,65 m operating at L/G ratio of 2,2 – 2,3 is needed to produce biomethane with CH4 purity of 95%. With stage efficiency of 0,5 – 0,65 in pressure of 9 bar and 0,59 – 0,75 in pressure of 10 bar. The column will be operated in pressure of 10 bar due to its higher stage efficiency.