Investigation of CO₂ desorption performance in tri-solvent blends (MEA-AMP-PZ) with and without catalyst

In this work, the regeneration characteristics of 6 M MEA-AMP-PZ (monoethanolamine, 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol and piperazine) tri-solvent blends with different AMP/PZ molar ratios with four different solid acid catalysts (H-ZSM-5, γ-Al₂O₃, SAPO-34 and SO₄ ^2-/TiO₂) and without catalyst at 369 K were studied in terms of CO₂ desorption rate and heat duty and compared with conventional 5 M MEA. For the blank runs, the results showed that the tri-solvent blends of 3 M MEA-2.5 M AMP-0.5 M PZ performs a best CO₂ desorption performance among all the tested amines, which reduced the heat duty by 51.9% as compared with 5 M MEA without catalyst (100%). With regard to catalyst, the best blend with H-ZSM-5 provided the combination with the greatest performance in CO₂ desorption, which decreased the heat duty by 61.6% in comparison with 5 M MEA without catalyst. Based on the results of this work, the combination of solid acid catalyst with tri-solvent amine blend is proven to be an alternative method for the improvement of the energy efficiency of the CO₂ capture process.