PNNL

Abstract

Acid gas scrubbing technology is predominantly aqueous alkanolamine based. Of the acid gases, CO2, H2S and SO2 have been shown to be reversible, however there are serious disadvantages with corrosion and high regeneration costs. The primary scrubbing system composed of monoethanolamine is limited to 30% by weight because of the highly corrosive solution. This gravimetric limitation limits the CO2 volumetric (=108 g/L) and gravimetric capacity (=7 wt%) of the system. Furthermore the scrubbing system has a large energy penalty from pumping and heating the excess water required to dissolve the MEA bicarbonate salt. Considering the high specific heat of water (4 j/g-1K-1), low capacities and the high corrosion we set out to design a fully organic solvent that can chemically bind all acid gases i.e. CO2 as reversible alkylcarbonate ionic liquids or analogues thereof. Having a liquid acid gas carrier improves process economics because there is no need for excess solvent to pump and to heat. We have demonstrated illustrated in Figure 1, that CO2-binding organic liquids (CO2BOLs) have a high CO2 solubility paired with a much lower specific heat (