CO2 capture using absorbents of mixed ionic and amine solutions

Studies have been conducted to find new absorbents for post-combustion CO2 capture. To overcome the ILs' limits and meanwhile take their advantages, the mixed amine + IL + H2O solutions as CO2 capture absorbent were investigated in a CO2 absorption/desorption loop setup. It was found that with an increase in IL concentration, the viscosity of the mixed solution rose while the energy required for absorbent regeneration decreased. In addition, no IL loss was detected and the amine loss per ton of captured CO2 was considerably lower than that of aqueous amine solution. The viscosity of the best candidate of 30 wt% MEA + 40 wt% [bmim][BF4] + 30 wt% H2O is close to the value of aqueous amine solution, indicating that the ionic liquid disadvantage of high viscosity can be overcome for absorbent delivery of CO2 capture. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).