Pilot plant study of two new solvents for post combustion carbon dioxide capture by reactive absorption and comparison to monoethanolamine

Application of new solvents will substantially contribute to the reduction of the energy demand for the post combustion capture of CO₂ from power plant flue gases. The present work describes tests of such new solvents in a gas-fired pilot plant, which comprises the complete absorption/desorption process (column diameters 0.125 m, absorber/desorber packing height 4.25/2.55 m, packing type: Sulzer BX 500, flue gas flow 30–100 kg/h, CO₂ partial pressure 35–135 mbar). Two new solvents CESAR1 (0.28 g/g 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol+0.17 g/g piperazine+0.55 g/g H₂O) and CESAR2 (0.32 g/g 1, 2-ethanediamine+0.68 g/g H₂O), which were developed in an EU-project, were systematically studied and compared to MEA (0.3 g/g monoethanolamine+0.7 g/g H₂O). The two new solvents and MEA were studied in the same way in the pilot plant and detailed results are reported for all solvents. In the present study the structured packing Sulzer BX 500 is used. The measurements are carried out at a constant CO₂ removal rate of 90% by an adjustment of the regeneration energy in the desorber for systematically varied solvent flow rates. An optimal solvent flow rate leading to a minimum energy requirement is found from these studies. Direct comparisons of such results can be misleading if there are differences in the kinetics of the different solvent systems. The influence of kinetic effects is experimentally studied by varying the flue gas flow rate at a constant ratio of solvent mass flow to flue gas mass flow and constant CO₂ removal rate. Results from these studies indicate similar kinetics for CESAR1, CESAR2 and MEA. The direct comparison of the pilot plant results for these solvents is therefore justified. Both CESAR1 and CESAR2 show improvements compared to MEA. The most promising is CESAR1 with a reduction of about 20% in the regeneration energy and 45% in the solvent flow rate.