Sorption enhanced water gas shift

Sorption enhanced water gas shift (SEWGS) is a technology that combines a pre-combustion carbon capture process with the water gas shift reaction (WGS) in order to produce a hydrogen rich stream from the syngas fed to the SEWGS reactor.

[2][3] The SEWGS technology is the combination of the water gas shift reaction with the adsorption of carbon dioxide on a solid material.

The inlet gas of SEWGS reactors is typically a mixture of hydrogen, CO and CO2, where steam is added to convert CO into CO2.

[1] The SEWGS technology is based on a multi-bed pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit in which the vessels are filled with the water gas shift catalyst and the CO2 adsorbent material.

[5] The process starts feeding syngas to the SEWGS reactor, where CO2 is adsorbed and a hydrogen-rich stream is produced.

[7] In SEWGS technology the pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process is employed to regenerate the adsorbent material and produce a CO2 rich stream.

Then, the rich liquid enters the desorption column where carbon dioxide is separated from the sorbent which is reused for CO2 absorption.

Traditional technologies require employing two water gas shift reactors (a high temperature and a low temperature stage) in order to get high conversions of carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide with an intermediate cooling stage between the two reactors.

[2] The importance of this technology is directly related to the problem of global warming and the mitigation of the carbon dioxide emissions.

[2][5][9] The integration of the SEWGS process in natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants has been investigated as a possible way to produce electricity from natural gas or coal with almost-zero emissions.