Simulation of CO2 Adsorption in A Fixed Bed Column Using Palm Oil Fiber Activated Carbon

The energy crisis and the depletion of fossil energy sources are the reasons for the use of alternative energy sources such as biogas, but on the other hand, the content of CO2 in biogas can reduce the calorific value of biogas. For this reason it is necessary to separate biogas from CO2. The most commonly used method to separate it is the adsorption method, because adsorption is more economical, the process is relatively simple. in this study, what acts as an adsorbent is activated carbon from palm fiber waste. The purpose of this study is to study the CO2 adsorption efficiency, adsorption capacity and isotherm mechanism of activated carbon from fiber using the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) method in the column fixed bed system. The research was performed with variations of flow rates of 10, 15, and 20 L/min and bed heights of 4, 8, and 12 cm using ANSYS 2021 R2 student version software. The highest CO2 adsorption efficiency was obtained at a bed height of 12 cm with a flow rate of 10 L/min, which was 75.13%. The highest CO2 adsorption capacity was obtained in a 12 cm bed with a flow rate of 10 liters/minute, which was 0.743 mg/g. The isothermal mechanism of CO2 gas adsorption using palm fiber activated carbon follows the Freundlich isothermal mechanism.