Experimental Study of SO2 Removal by Seawater in a Packed-bed Tower

In this investigation, an attemp has been made for flue gas desulphurization by seawater (with a salinity of 36 g/kg) in a counter-current packed-bed tower. The experiments were based on the 16-run (5 factor-4 level) orthogonal array of the Taguchi method and ANOVA table is adopted to determine the statistically significant control factor in SO2 removal efficiency. Experiments revealed that liquid flow rate (1.5-4 L/min), gas temperature (50-350 0C ), gas flow rate (8-20 m3/h) and SO2 concentration (500-2000 ppmv) were important factors, while pH of seawater whitin the range of 8-9.5 was insignificant factor. For liquid flow rate at about 2.5 times minimum required liquid the SO2 removal efficiency was about 98%. Results also indicated that an increase in gas temperature has negative effect on removal efficiency. Such results on vital factors are essential for design and study of this equipment for SO2 removal from stack gas

Keywords:

SO2 removal , packed-bed tower , seawater , taguchi method