Intensification of low temperature thermomorphic biphasic amine solvent regeneration for CO2 capture

High-energy requirements for solvent regeneration represent one of the main challenges in the conventional post-combustion capture (PCC) process. Thermomorphic biphasic solvent (TBS), comprising lipophilic amines as the active components, exhibit a liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) upon heating, giving rise to extractive behaviour, and thus enhancing desorption at temperatures well below the solvent boiling point. The low regeneration temperature of less than 90 degrees C together with the high cyclic CO2 loading capacity, 3-4 mol/kg, of such TBS system permits the use of low temperature and even waste heat for desorption purposes. In order to improve the solvent regeneration process and reduce the commensurate energy demand still further, desorption experiments with various techniques for enhancing CO2 release in place of gas stripping, such as nucleation, agitation, ultrasonic method, etc., were studied at temperatures in the range of 75-85 degrees C. Nucleation and agitation both accelerate CO2 desorption, but regenerability by nucleation only achieves 70-85%, while by agitation attains 80-95%. Ultrasonic desorption also intensifies the solvent regeneration and superior to conventional stripping process. The energy consumption for TBS system with those intensification techniques is only half of that for alkanolamine-based process with steam stripping. Extractive regeneration is another potential method to substitute for stripping and reduce the exergy demands. An extraction process using inert solvent was developed for improving the regeneration efficiency and elevated pressures were applied for reducing the significant volatile solvent loss. (C) 2012 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.