Split-flow process and apparatus

Abstract

A recovery plant for recovery of a gaseous component, such as carbon dioxide, from a process gas, such as the exhaust from a combustion turbine, has an absorber (110) employing a lean solvent (126) in an upper section of the absorber and a semi-lean solvent (172) in a lower section of the absorber. A regenerator (120) extracts the gaseous component from the rich solvent (117) thereby producing a regenerated lean solvent (126) and a semi-lean solvent (127). A solvent flow control element (170) combines at least a part of the semi-rich solvent (118) from the upper section of the absorber with the semi-lean solvent (127) from the regenerator to form a mixed solvent (171), and a cooler (112) cools the mixed solvent that is subsequently fed into the lower section of the absorber (110). By cooling the mixed solvent prior to entry into the absorber, the thermal energy required to remove the carbon dioxide from the exhaust gas can be reduced.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.