Amine Scrubbing for CO ₂ Capture

TLDR

Amine scrubbing, employed since 1930 to separate CO₂ from natural gas and hydrogen, provides a low‑energy baseline (0.11 MWh t⁻¹) for coal‑flue gas treatment, while other advanced technologies lack comparable efficiency or timeliness. The study aims to scale up amine scrubbing for coal‑plant CO₂ capture and to achieve energy consumption reductions to 0.2 MWh t⁻¹ through process and solvent improvements. The authors propose process and solvent enhancements designed to lower energy use to 0.2 MWh t⁻¹.

Abstract

Amine scrubbing has been used to separate carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from natural gas and hydrogen since 1930. It is a robust technology and is ready to be tested and used on a larger scale for CO 2 capture from coal-fired power plants. The minimum work requirement to separate CO 2 from coal-fired flue gas and compress CO 2 to 150 bar is 0.11 megawatt-hours per metric ton of CO 2 . Process and solvent improvements should reduce the energy consumption to 0.2 megawatt-hour per ton of CO 2 . Other advanced technologies will not provide energy-efficient or timely solutions to CO 2 emission from conventional coal-fired power plants.