Volume 5: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part IV

Impact of Kit-6 Catalyst on Reducing the Energy Consumption of Mea-CO2 Loaded Regeneration Process Zain Ali Saleh Bairq, Jin Bo, Hongxia Gao*, Zhiwu Liang*, Paitoon Tontiwachwuthikul

Abstract

The intensive energy penalty for amine solvent regeneration in the absorption/desorption process considered one of the major obstacles of this technology. Therefore, a series of a super solid acid catalyst (SO42-/SnO2, SO42-/ZrO2, and mesoporous silica Kit-6) were synthesized and studied separately to investigate their effectiveness on monoethanolamine (MEA) solvent regeneration at 97°C. It has been observed that all the catalysts promote the CO2 desorption performance, the Kit-6 exhibit the best catalytic performance which can enhance the desorption rate by 43.90% and reduce the energy consumption by 34.6% compare to monoethanolamine (MEA) without catalysts, whereas other solid acid catalysts, SO42-/SnO2 and SO42-/ZrO2 exhibited a significant change in amine regeneration performance at the same conditions. The rich-MEA regeneration performance order was MEA-Kit-6 > MEA-SO42-/SnO2 > MEA-SO42-/ZrO2 > MEA without a catalyst. Based on the obtained results, the application of this work will open a new path in CO2 stripping process to reduce the regeneration energy requirements and enhancing the desorption rate, which would decrease the operating costs of rich amine solvent regeneration.

Keywords MEA solvent regeneration, Post-combustion CO2 capture, Solid acid catalysts, CO2 desorption, Brϕnsted acid sites