Estudo do aproveitamento de resíduo de mineração rico em calcário para produção de cal e captura de dióxido de carbono

Abstract

The increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere after Industrial Revolution mainly due to the increasing consumption of fossil fuels is considered the major role in global warming and greenhouse effect. Thereafter, alternatives have been sought to decrease this gas emission. CO2 capture is an appropriate option to achieve that reduction. It consists of separation of CO2 from flue gas and storage in a safe place. An economical way to separate it is through cycles of carbonation - calcination reactions, based on the carbonation reaction of CaO to capture CO2 and the subsequent calcination of CaCO3 to regenerate the sorbent. However, it has been found that the conversion of CaO to CaCO3 in the carbonation step decreases with increasing cycles because of the sintering phenomena. Hence, it is reasonable include a step of hydration of calcium oxide to keep the reactivity along many cycles. In this work, it was aimed to evaluate the use of a high limestone content waste from Vale Fertilizantes produced in apatite process to produce lime and capture CO2 over five calcination/hydration/carbonation reaction cycles. Firstly, it was studied the characteristics of the waste and it was determined its mean diameter, crystalline phases, specific surface area and the temperature which it starts calcining. Then, it was set a Central Composite Planning with the variables calcination temperature and time and it was used a thermogravimetric analysis to monitor the capture capacity of CO2 and the ASTM-C-110-76 to evaluate lime reactivity. The results indicate that, to all cycles, as calcination time and temperature increase the reactivity also increases until reach the best region, and then begins to decrease due to sintering. Furthermore, for the first cycle, those samples conducted at higher calcination temperatures showed better ability to capture, but over the cycles the ability to capture for all conditions tends to the same value. Therefore, it appears that temperature and time calcination do influence on CO2 uptake in initial cycles, but a large number of cycles, the effect becomes insignificant. Furthermore, the reactivity and the capture capacity showed similar behavior and were strongly influenced by the calcination temperature and time at the first cycle and become more independent of these conditions as cycle number increases. The maximum capacity declines over the cycles and drops from about 0,42 at the first cycle to about 0,23 at the fifth cycle and it is due to sintering phenomena which becomes more noticeable.