Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.50, No.19, 11343-11349, 2011
Supported Monoethanolamine for CO2 Separation
An alternative method for using monoethanolamine (MBA) in CO2 separation is developed from the viewpoints of the MBA-CO2 reaction environment and the process of spent sorbent regeneration. MEA TiO2 (MT) CO2 sorbent is synthesized using pure MBA and a support material, TiO2. The performance of the MT sorbent on CO2 separation was investigated in tubular reactors under various experimental conditions. The sorption capacity of the MT sorbent reached 1.09 mol.CO2/kg-MT at 45 wt % MBA. However, an optimum of 40 wt % MBA loading was chosen for most of the sorption tests. Temperature affected the CO2 sorption capacity considerably, with optimum values of 45 degrees C for adsorption and 90 degrees C for regeneration, while humidity had a small positive effect. TiO(OH)(2) appears to be the best support material for MEA, but more evaluation is needed. The MT sorbent is regenerable, with a multicycle sorption capacity of similar to 0.91 mol-CO2/kg-MT under the Oven experimental conditions.