TY - JOUR
T1 - Biogas upgrading with PZ/MDEA
T2 - Pilot demonstration of absorber intercooling, cold solvent split and lean vapor compression
AU - Jørsboe, Jens Kristian
AU - Jensen, Ebbe Hauge
AU - Jensen, Søren
AU - Wiers, Peter
AU - Karlsson, Jakob
AU - Løge, Isaac Appelquist
AU - Abildskov, Jens
AU - Fosbøl, Philip
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Authors
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - The amine scrubbing technology enables upgrading of biogas to high purity biomethane. In this study, a mobile amine scrubbing pilot plant is upgrading industrially produced biogas utilizing a solvent consisting of 6 wt% piperazine (PZ) + 39 wt% methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of three advanced process configurations: Absorber intercooling (IC), cold solvent splitting (CSS), and lean vapour compression (LVC), where CSS and LVC are used in combination. In base case operation, the PZ/MDEA solvent requires a specific reboiler duty (SRD) of 3.4 MJ per kg CO2. We find that IC increases the CO2 content in the rich solvent by 20 % and reduces the specific reboiler duty (SRD) to 3.25 MJ per kg CO2. The SRD is further reduced to 2.8 MJ per kg CO2 when combining IC with LVC and CSS. A ProMax model for the LVC system is used to quantify uncertainties and upscaling of the LVC system for PZ/MDEA. By including the compression work for the LVC, it is shown that the LVC configuration increases the overall energy consumption in the pilot scale experiments.
AB - The amine scrubbing technology enables upgrading of biogas to high purity biomethane. In this study, a mobile amine scrubbing pilot plant is upgrading industrially produced biogas utilizing a solvent consisting of 6 wt% piperazine (PZ) + 39 wt% methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of three advanced process configurations: Absorber intercooling (IC), cold solvent splitting (CSS), and lean vapour compression (LVC), where CSS and LVC are used in combination. In base case operation, the PZ/MDEA solvent requires a specific reboiler duty (SRD) of 3.4 MJ per kg CO2. We find that IC increases the CO2 content in the rich solvent by 20 % and reduces the specific reboiler duty (SRD) to 3.25 MJ per kg CO2. The SRD is further reduced to 2.8 MJ per kg CO2 when combining IC with LVC and CSS. A ProMax model for the LVC system is used to quantify uncertainties and upscaling of the LVC system for PZ/MDEA. By including the compression work for the LVC, it is shown that the LVC configuration increases the overall energy consumption in the pilot scale experiments.
KW - Biogas upgrading
KW - Carbon capture
KW - Intercooling (IC)
KW - Lean vapor compression (LVC)
KW - Methyldiethanolamine (MDEA)
KW - Piperazine (PZ)
U2 - 10.1016/j.fuel.2025.135296
DO - 10.1016/j.fuel.2025.135296
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:105002315192
SN - 0016-2361
VL - 396
JO - Fuel
JF - Fuel
M1 - 135296
ER -
