Abstract
Thermal amine scrubbing is the most advanced CO2 capture technique but its largescale application is hindered due to the large heat requirement during solvent regeneration step. The addition of a solid metal oxide catalysts can optimize the CO2 desorption rate and thus minimize the energy consumption. Herein, we evaluate the solvent regeneration performance of Monoethanolamine (MEA) and Diethanolamine (DEA) solvents without and with two metal oxide catalysts (TiO2 and V2O5) within a temperature range of 40-86℃. The solvent regeneration performance was evaluated in terms of CO2 desorption rate and overall amount of CO2 desorbed during the experiments. Both catalysts improved the solvent regeneration performance by desorbing greater amounts of CO2 with higher CO2 desorption rates at low temperature. Improvements of 86% and 50% in the CO2 desorption rate were made by the catalysts for MEA and DEA solvents, respectively. The total amount of the desorbed CO2 also improved by 17% and 13% from MEA and DEA solvents, respectively. The metal oxide catalyst-aided regeneration of amine solutions can be a new approach to minimize the heat requirement during solvent regeneration and thus can remove a primary shortfall of this technology.