The trend toward global warming has become more and more apparent in recent years. It has been widely accepted that CO 2 is the main contributor to this process and that CO 2 emissions urgently need to be reduced. However, the capital cost for CO 2 capture from a coal-fired power station using traditional solvent absorption technology is relatively high. A possible solution to reduce the cost is to achieve absorption of SO 2, NO x, and CO 2 in a one-step process. Potassium carbonate (K 2 CO 3 ) is a potential solvent for absorbing all of these components simultaneously. To apply this absorption process in an industrial situation, it is very important to understand the interaction between the solvent and minor components contained in the flue gas, such as SO 2 and NO x . The effect of SO 2 on CO 2 absorption using K 2 CO 3 solutions has been previously discussed. This paper studies the influence of NO x upon CO 2 absorption using 30 wt % K 2 CO 3 solvent. It was found that the reaction between NO x and K 2 CO 3 was irreversible, which would result in the accumulation of NO 2 − and NO 3 − in the solvent using an industrial flue gas process, with a simultaneous reduction in the CO 3 2− concentration.
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Zhao et al. (2009) studied this question.