Dr. Fateme Rezaei, assistant professor of chemical and biochemical engineering at Missouri S&T, will give a lecture titled “Adsorption of Carbon Dioxide over Supported Amine Adsorbents in the Presence of Sulfur Oxide and Nitrogen Oxide Impurities,” at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, in Room 124 Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Hall. This seminar is sponsored by the Environmental Research Center. The abstract and Rezaei’s biography are as follows:

Flue gases from coal-fired power plants typically contain not only carbon dioxide, but other acid gas impurities such as sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide that can dramatically influence the carbon dioxide capture efficiency. The deactivation of carbon dioxide-adsorbing materials in the presence of these impurities poses a significant challenge to the practical application and scale-up of the adsorption-based carbon dioxide capture technologies due to the irreversible nature of the reaction between these species and many solid adsorbents which will dramatically reduce the adsorbent lifetime. Solid-supported amines have been identified as the most promising materials for the removal of carbon dioxide from flue gas streams. Here, the stability of supported aminosilica adsorbents to sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide impurities in carbon dioxide capture process are evaluated by conducting equilibrium and dynamic adsorption experiments. The powder materials containing primary, secondary and tertiary amines are exposed to pure and binary gas mixtures in TGA and fixed-bed systems. The carbon dioxide capacity is measured before and after exposure to sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide or nitrogen dioxide to evaluate any carbon dioxide capacity loss due to irreversible binding of these gases to the supported amine adsorbents. Furthermore, the stability of amine-based hollow fiber sorbents, as a novel carbon capture system, to sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are evaluated by conducting cyclic adsorption-desorption experiments using dry and humid simulated flue gas. The dynamic carbon dioxide capacity of the hollow fibers are measured accordingly to evaluate any capacity loss after 120 cycles.

Rezaei earned Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from Monash University in Australia and Lulea University of Technology in Sweden. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology before she joined the chemical and biochemical engineering department at Missouri S&T. Her research focuses on the interface of chemical, materials science and environmental engineering. The general goal of her work is to develop advanced materials and processes for clean energy and sustainable chemical processes. In particular, her research relates to fundamental and applied aspects of adsorption, separations and reaction.