Integrated two‐stage adsorption for selective removal of CO 2 and SO 2 by amine‐functionalized SBA‐15

A novel process for integrated two‐stage selective removal of CO 2 and SO 2 from a simulated flue gas by an adsorption method was developed. Triethylolamine (TEA)‐loaded SBA‐15 was selected as the SO 2 adsorbent, and tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA)‐loaded SBA‐15 was the CO 2 adsorbent. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, N 2 adsorption/desorption, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction techniques were used to characterize the properties of the adsorbents. The effects of the height–diameter ratio (H/D) of the adsorbent bed and operation temperature were tested for the removal of SO 2 . The results indicated that the pore volume and surface area of SBA‐15‐TEA‐50 and SBA‐15‐TEPA‐50 dropped with the increase of amine loading. SO 2 breakthrough adsorption capacity of SBA‐15‐TEA‐50 was 146.3 mg of SO 2 /(g of adsorbent). The integrated two‐stage removal experiment of SO 2 and CO 2 over SBA‐15‐TEA and SBA‐15‐TEPA showed that CO 2 and SO 2 in gas mixture can be removed in two stages, respectively. Regeneration experiment showed that both the SO 2 and CO 2 breakthrough capacity almost kept a constant in the multiple cycles, and the regeneration of integrated two‐stage system was stable. © 2017 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.