Activated carbon honeycomb monolith – Zeolite 13X hybrid system to capture CO2 from flue gases employing Electric Swing Adsorption

In this work, a preliminary study about the performance of a new hybrid adsorption bed, for CO2 capture from flue gases by Electric Swing Adsorption (ESA), was performed. The hybrid adsorption bed tested consists in an activated carbon honeycomb monolith with zeolite 13X particles packed inside its channels. The dynamic behaviour of the adsorption bed was evaluated by performing breakthrough experiments. The amount of CO2 adsorbed was the double when compared with employing the activated carbon monolith only, even when the content of zeolite is only 18%. ESA experimental cycles were tested. Purity of 46.6% was obtained while capturing 81.4% of the fed CO2 with a six-step ESA cycle. The obtained purity means an enrichment of the feed stream of 5.8 times. The experimental energy consumption is still high due to the mass transfer zone limitations. Solving this problem will allow decreasing the energy consumption more than five times which means that the process can present competitive energy consumption when compared with existing technology. •A hybrid adsorption bed (activated carbon; zeolite 13X) was tested for CO2 capture.•The amount of CO2 adsorbed was the double than employing activated carbon only.•ESA experimental results showed a purity of 46.6% and capture of 81.4%.•Enhancing the bed packing, the energy penalty can be reduced to competitive values.