Surfactant effects on gas absorption in a coke-oven gas treatment process

The effect of organic impurities in industrial stripped coal water (SCW) on the absorption of CO2 was measured experimentally. Removal of these impuri ties via activated carbon showed a marked improvement in interphase mass tr ansfer of a vertical wetted-wall column absorber. However, this benefit was not found in a stirred-cell absorber, in which a different flow pattern fr om that in wetted-wall column absorber is expected. An ad hoc systematic st udy on the effects of three deliberately added surfactants on gas absorptio n by pure water in three different absorbers with different flow patterns w as thereafter conducted. The experimental results reveal that absorption de terioration also prevails only in a vertical, wetted-wall column absorber a nd the reduction in liquid phase mass transfer by the addition of surfactan t can be satisfactorily correlated with surface pressure of solutions. This indicates that the effect of the industrial impurities in SCW on gas absor ption may successfully be simulated under the same flow pattern by a surfac tant solution with the same surface pressure. A possible modification of th e existing coke-oven gas (COG) treatment process for the benefit of absorpt ion enhancement was finally proposed.