Cycle design and optimization of pressure swing adsorption cycles for pre-combustion CO2 capture

•Novel steam-purge pressure swing adsorption cycles for pre-combustion CO2 capture.•Three cycles meet regulatory targets of CO2 purity > 95% and recovery > 90%.•Genetic-algorithm based optimization to minimize energy and maximize productivity.•Parasitic Energy: 95.7 kWhe/tonne CO2 cap, productivity: 3.3 mol CO2 cap/m3 ads/s. Novel pressure-swing adsorption (PSA) cycles were developed based on patented TDA AMS-19 (activated carbon) adsorbent for pre-combustion CO2 capture in integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants. A variety of cycles comprising of counter-current blowdown, pressure equalization, steam purge and light product pressurization steps were designed and simulated using an in-house one dimensional detailed model. Full process optimization studies were performed for all cycles to evaluate their feasibility for pre-combustion CO2 capture. The CO2 purity and recovery Pareto fronts obtained using the multi-objective optimization were used to assess their ability to simultaneously achieve high CO2 purity (>95%) and recovery (>90%). The cycles that achieved the purity-recovery (95–90%) requirements were subjected to energy-productivity optimizations under the constraints of CO2 purity and recovery. Three cycle designs were ranked in terms of lowest energy consumption at 95% CO2 purities and 90% CO2 recoveries. It was found that a 10-step cycle with three pressure equalization steps achieved a minimum energy consumption of 95.7 kWhe/tonne of CO2 captured at a productivity of 3.3 mol CO2 captured/m3 adsorbent/s.