1. Packed beds with water are also used to remove Sulfur Dioxide (to reduce acid
ID: 977034 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Packed beds with water are also used to remove Sulfur Dioxide (to reduce acid rain). Discuss the differences in the molecular structures of CO2 and SO2. How might the nature of these gases lead to differences in the performance of the scrubber?
2. Following up on the previous question, if CO2 or SO2 is “dissolved” in water, explain how any other differences might manifest themselves in column performance for the two different species.
3. Sometimes there is a contaminant in a liquid that needs to be removed. This is the reverse of absorption, known as stripping. Based on what you know about absorption, do you think that the reverse process where CO2 is removed from the water by the air stream will take the same amount of time as when you remove CO2 from the air? Is CO2 scrubbing with water a reversible process?
Explanation / Answer
1) Lewis dot structure for SO2 is bent while for CO2 it is linear. This is because in electrons are not equally shared between the atoms in SO2 where as wctrons are equally share between two oxygen atoms in CO2. Hence SO2 is polar molecule and CO2 is non-polar.
When treated with water SO2 surface complex forms where as the complex is not formed with CO2.
The solubility of SO2+CO2 in water varies exponentially with respect to SO2 concentrations i.e at low concentrations of SO2 total changes in solubility of the CO2 in water is negligible.
2) SO2 dissolves more in water than CO2. So there will definitely will be a performance difference in the colomn and this can be good if observed practically than saying theoritically.
3) yes CO2 removal from water using air stream will take more time than removing CO2 from air.
Yes CO2 scrubbing with water is a reversible process.
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