Screening and Characterization of Advanced Amine Based Solvent Systems for CO2 Post-Combustion Capture

Abstract Carbon dioxide chemical absorption with amine based solvents is currently the state-of-the-art technology for post-combustion carbon capture. However, many technical challenges still remain that need to be addressed to make it cost-effective. Through bench-scale tests, this research work is focused on developing and characterizing advanced amine-based solvents. Screening of amine solvents is performed to identify suitability on the basis of solvent maximum concentration, rich CO 2 loading, lean CO 2 loading, cyclic CO 2 loading and energy requirement. The five alkanolamine solvents which are experimented upon in this work are: monoethanolamine (MEA), diethanolamine (DEA), N-methyldiethanolamine (MDEA), Piperazine (PZ) and 2-Amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP). These solvents are taken as reference solvents to allow comparison with literature data and to establish confidence in the experimental methods used for solvent evaluation. CO 2 outlet concentration curves from the absorption experiments show that piperazine reaches equilibrium faster than any other solvent and the CO 2 loading capacity from phosphoric acid titration method is highest in piperazine with a value of 0.92.