Supported Monoethanolamine for CO2 Separation

An alternative method for using monoethanolamine (MEA) in CO 2 separation is developed from the viewpoints of the MEA–CO 2 reaction environment and the process of spent sorbent regeneration. MEA–TiO 2 (MT) CO 2 sorbent is synthesized using pure MEA and a support material, TiO 2 . The performance of the MT sorbent on CO 2 separation was investigated in tubular reactors under various experimental conditions. The sorption capacity of the MT sorbent reached 1.09 mol-CO 2 /kg-MT at 45 wt % MEA. However, an optimum of 40 wt % MEA loading was chosen for most of the sorption tests. Temperature affected the CO 2 sorption capacity considerably, with optimum values of 45 °C for adsorption and 90 °C for regeneration, while humidity had a small positive effect. TiO(OH) 2 appears to be the best support material for MEA, but more evaluation is needed. The MT sorbent is regenerable, with a multicycle sorption capacity of ∼0.91 mol-CO 2 /kg-MT under the given experimental conditions.