The removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a submarine's atmosphere is essential for safe operation and is the subject of on-going research to identify ways of improving on-board removal efficiencies in order to improve submariner health and operational capacity. On Royal Navy (RN) submarines, CO2 is currently removed using liquid monoethanolamine (MEA) packed tower (MPT) scrubber plants. If liquid MEA gets into the atmosphere it can undergo oxidation in the on-board high-temperature catalytic burner to form oxides of nitrogen (NOx) which are extremely hazardous to health. Replacing the Low Ion MEA Chelate Mix (LCM) in the scrubbers with either an amine free or a less volatile amine sorbent would reduce atmosphere contamination and improve safety. QinetiQ has evaluated two solid state resins (Diaion® HP-20 impregnated with polyethyleneimine (PEI) and Lewatit VP OC 1065) as potential replacements for MEA. These amine resins have good CO2 uptake and are easy to handle. Of the two resins investigated, Lewatit VP OC 1065 was the most promising candidate for use on submarines and had effective CO2 removal times that were greater than the regeneration interval. This is important when considering the design of a multi-bed scrubber system.
Harris et al. (Sun,) studied this question.