FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE

Assignment # 2A:

Critical review report of research paper

Instructor:

Dr Raphael Idem

Course title:

ADVANCED MASS TRANSFER

Course code:

ENPC 833

______________________________________________________________________

Student name:

Hafiz Muhammad Atif

Student ID:

200319942

Department:

Process System Engineering

______________________________________________________________________

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE

The following critical review is done for a research paper covering comparative study of
CO2 Absorption into newly developed compound 4-Diethylamino-2-butanol DEAB, Mono
ethanol amine MEA, and N-Methyl di ethanolamine MDEA.
This study is done by Mohamed Edali,Raphael Idem, Abdulaziz Naami,Paitoon
Tontiwachwuthikul Teerawat Sema.
Research paper was received at April 18, 2011, revised March 20, 2012, accepted at
April 16, 2012 and published at April 16, 2012 in Industrial Engineering and Chemistry
Research Journal 51 (2012) 64706479.

Abstract:
In provided paper for critical review Mass transfer performance is
measured along with compares working of different solvents for capturing of CO 2 gas in
lab scale experiment by using structured packed absorber column at 1 atm pressure of
gas with composition of CO2 14.9 % and N2 85.1 % .
Abstract looks pretty good but second last line of abstract stating overall mass transfer
efficiency is greater for MEA

is not according to right column line number 18 of

introduction that states that MDEA has higher CO2 absorption capacity than MEA.

1. Introduction:
Authors prefer to gas absorption techniques by using amines on
other techniques like adsorption, cryogenics, membrane technologies according to
present scenario which seems to be pretty good but in line number 20th of column A an
equilibrium capacity of MEA system with CO2 is given as 0.5 Mol of CO2 / mol of MEA
but this value is missing for MDEA system which comes 1.0 Mol of CO2 / mole of

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amine1. While in similar lines there must be discrete value of heat of regeneration of both
solvents for superior comparison as provided in Roongrat Sakwattanapong, Adisorn
Aroonwilas, and Amornvadee Veawab

as this was the basic requirement to move

towards other amines rather than MEA.

There must also have some information regarding the effect of pressure, temperature or
other operational variable at solvent selection because usually plants have differed
operating parameters than used by authors.
It looks Page 1 Left column, line number 4 of paper comparing only absorption and
cyclic capacities of MEA with new amino alcohols there must be MDEA values reference
like provided by ZHANG Pei, SHI Yao 3 because provided paper covers the comparative
studies of new solvents with both MEA and MDEA.

2. Determination of overall mass transfer coefficient :

In this section author
emphasis to correlations for the measurement of overall mass transfer coefficient (KG)
and its relation with individual mass transfer coefficient for gas k G and liquid kL and to
measure mass transfer coefficient based on unit volume KGav .
At page 2, left column in equation 4 KG relation with enhancement factor (I) is given
with term kL0 what does mean by kL0 and what does its physical importance?
At page 2, right column equation number 10 there is term yA but this term must be at
equilibrium conditions so notation will be with yA*
In schematic diagram at page 3 Followings are the findings

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE

There must be description of diagram to make vision clear

What are B1 and B2? these looks to be CO2 and N2 vessel must incorporated in
diagram symbol summary
There must be flow direction for line coming from B1.
At the upstream of gas mixture and downstream of first three way valve there are
boxes labeling with F what are these?
Why there is line to connecting first two boxes labels with F.
There is bath heater in figure which confirming there is critical temperature range
for this experiment what is this range?
Number 6 must be labeled as Rich solution storage tank rather than
thermocouple.
Rich amine solution at downstream of three way valve is entering to lean amine
tank I think this line must go to rich solution tank because this remaining rich
liquid will contaminate to lean solution tank.
Authors want to keep the standard of diagram by placing number on each line
but at some places direct name is given so standard must keep similar in the
diagram.
In nomenclature number 9 is flow mass flow meter but missing in diagram.
Number 10 is present in diagram but in nomenclature this is missing.

3. Thermodynamics for CO2 absorption:

In this section references of different
physical properties, thermodynamic properties are given and reason of calculation for yA*

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE

is given that is taken equivalent to zero in previous studies that is good and very
informative,with precise measurement this is proved that CO2 reaction with DEAB is too
fast but there must be value of this parameters for other two solvents like MEA and
MDEA.
For the equation 15 at page number 4 of the page we need to measure the solubility of
CO2 in new proposed compound what value was taken for this experiment and from
which reference?
4. Experimental selection :
Brief description of for DEAB manufacturing procedure
along with experimental constraints are presented in this section very nicely but this
section is lacking experimental step for CO2 absorption in MDEA,MEA and DEAB using
packed glass column also there must be experimental conditions of flow rate for both
liquid and gas that were used during this test run when system was at steady state.
There must also some information regarding this experimental set up has any
constraints or not?

5. Results and discussions :

In this section author compared experimental setup
used for this activity with the other used by other persons in past and found results
almost similar to past but with some improvements.
At page number 5 , left column and from line number 49 there is mass balance error
and percent average absolute deviation for mass balance which are 2 6 % , 14.7 %
respectively on by comparing these values with standard values which are missing in

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assigned paper for mass balance author justifies his result but there must be some
reference value in the paper for comparison.
For the verification of improvement in channeling during this proposed packed column
setup author compared his results with Maneenintret al equipment setup at page number
5, left column and line number 55 but did not provide how channeling was overcome /
improved? Information regarding the average solute velocity is missing that is basic
criteria for channeling
For the verification of the used packed column author compared his MEA solvent result
with DeMontigny results who used Air - CO2 mixture with same solvent and found similar
result and gave reason that in this experiment author used low flow rate of gases but did
not justify why he did use low flow rate when he can use same flow as DeMontigny.
Author justified very adequately the effect of liquid flow rate at absorption capacity of
CO2, KGav and dependence of KGav at CO2 loading at the end of page number 5, right
column, at the page number 6, left column and page number 6, right column respectively
but there must be some tabulated values of these parameters so one can assure the
validity of the graph as usually present in other research papers.
At the left column of page number 6, starting from line number 26 author emphasized
on larger recycling capacity of DEAB but there must be some trends of newly developed
compound as given by ZHANG Pei, SHI Yao 3 for DEA and MDEA.

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6. Mass transfer correlation :

At the right column, page number 8 equation number
18 described how KGav relate to liquid mass velocity, gas mass velocity and constants
there is no reference of these two (b and c) coefficients

7. Relative cost issue:

In my opinion height of column must also part of relative cost
issue discussion which is missing along with cyclic capacity and energy requirement
for regeneration because usually when we use MEA than we require smaller column
as compared to MDEA and DEAB also this point is clear from figure number 7 at
page 7.
8. Conclusion:
Author concluded whole research paper quite well but usually
conclusion also says something about limitation of experiment or method or if there is no
limitation than something must there for the appreciation of the perfect experimental
setup.
9. References :
References quoted in assigned research papers are according to
standard one can easily approach to the mentioned references.

References for critical review:

1. Removal of carbon dioxide by absorption in mixed amines: modeling of absorption in
aqueous MDEA=MEA and AMP=MEA solutions Chemical Engineering Science 56
(2001) 62176224

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE

2. Behavior of Re boiler Heat Duty for CO2 Capture Plants Using Regenerable Single
and Blended Alkanolamines Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2005, 44, 4465-4473
3. Regeneration of 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol used for carbon dioxide absorption
Journal of Environmental Sciences 20(2008) 3944