Analytical Sciences


Abstract − Analytical Sciences, 31(8), 757 (2015).

Simultaneous Online Measurement of H2O and CO2 in the Humid CO2 Adsorption/Desorption Process
Qingni YU,*,** Sha YE,* Jingke ZHU,* Lecheng LEI,* and Bin YANG*
*Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P. R. China
**China Astronaut Research and Training Center, Beijing 100094, P. R. China
A dew point meter (DP) and an infrared (IR) CO2 analyzer were assembled in a humid CO2 adsorption/desorption system in series for simultaneous online measurements of H2O and CO2, respectively. The humidifier, by using surface-flushing on a saturated brine solution was self-made for the generation of humid air flow. It was found that by this method it became relatively easy to obtain a low H2O content in air flow and that its fluctuation could be reduced compared to the bubbling method. Water calibration for the DP-IR detector is necessary to be conducted for minimizing the measurement error of H2O. It demonstrated that the relative error (RA) for simultaneous online measurements H2O and CO2 in the desorption process is lower than 0.1%. The high RA in the adsorption of H2O is attributed to H2O adsorption on the transfer pipe and amplification of the measurement error. The high accuracy of simultaneous online measurements of H2O and CO2 is promising for investigating their co-adsorption/desorption behaviors, especially for direct CO2 capture from ambient air.