Alkanolmonoamines as Activators for the Hot Potash Process for CO2 Capture

The present study is based on use of activators in the hot potash process. Glycine is commonly used as an activator in the Giammarco Vetrocoke process. This paper presents a systematic study on use of alkanolmonoamines as possible alternate activators. These alkanolmonoamines contain only one amino group that may be unsubstituted/ substituted (-NH2, -NRH or -NR2) and thus the acidity of these compounds is one that arises from the only amino group that is there in the molecule. Out of these, monoethanolamine, diethanolamine and triethanolamine are previously reported as activators in the literature. This paper reports the experimental studies on such alkanolmonoamines including the new alkanolmonoamine structures also. The proposed amines as activators have shown highly promising results. A 632-700 % increase in rate of absorption, 493 % increase in capacity of absorption of K2CO3 and 313-400 % increase in the CO2 regenerated has been observed for some of these amines. In case of glycine this increase is 134, 214 and 161 %, respectively. A combination of these with diethanolamine increases the rate of absorption considerably. This study is directed towards finding a non-degradable, cheaper, environmentally friendly and more efficient alternative to glycine as activator.