Ionic liquids for post-combustion CO2 absorption

The present work is a study to evaluate ionic liquids as a potential solvent for post-combustion CO2 capture. In order to enhance the absorption performance of a CO2 capture unit, different ionic liquids have been designed and tested. The main goal was to get a comparison between a reference liquid and selected ionic liquids. As the reference, a solution of 30 w% monoethanolamine (MEA) and water was used. A large range of different pure and diluted ionic liquids was tested with a special screening process to gain general information about the CO2 absorption performance. Based on these results, a 60 w% ionic liquid solution in water was selected and the vapour-liquid equilibrium was measured experimentally between 40 degrees C and 110 degrees C. From these curves the enthalpy of absorption for capturing CO2 into the ionic liquid was determined. With these important parameters one is able to calculate the total energy demand for stripping of CO2 from the loaded solvent for comparison of the ionic liquid based solvent with the reference MEA solvent. The energy demand of this 60 w% ionic liquid is slightly lower than that of the reference solution, resulting in possible energy savings between 12 and 16%. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.