Conference abstract – TCCS-13: “Reclamation chemistry of the CESAR1 solvent”

Abstract

The CESAR1 solvent is possibly the most popular non-proprietary solvent blend for CO2 capture and has been under thorough investigation in the past decade (Benquet et al., 2021; Buvik et al., 2024a; Campbell et al., 2022; Hume et al., 2022, 2021; Moser et al., 2023, 2021a, 2021b). The Horizon Europe project AURORA, under which this work has been conducted, aims to close the remaining knowledge gaps related to post-combustion CO2 capture with CESAR1 and allow for safe, and cost-effective long-term process operation (Morlando et al., 2024). One of the aspects that is being studied in-depth is solvent degradation, and as a part of this, solvent management techniques like thermal reclaiming. It is expected that some form of solvent reclaiming will be required during long-term industrial operation, both due to degradation of the two solvent amines 2-amino-2-methylpropanol (AMP), and piperazine (PZ), but also because trace impurities from the flue gas may accumulate over time and should be removed to maintain efficient CO2 capture. Thermal reclaiming is widely implemented in natural gas treatment facilities, but also frequently used to regenerate the solvent from post-combustion CO2 capture processes, despite of this process being more chemically complex than conventional gas treating (Bazhenov et al., 2015; Campbell et al., 2022; Flø et al., 2017; Kentish, 2016; Srivastava et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2015).

Keywords: Degradation, Post-Combustion, Solvent Management, Reclaiming, AMP, Piperazine.

Authors: Vanja Buvik, Kai Vernstad, Andreas Grimstvedt (SINTEF Industry), Hanna K. Knuutila (Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU), Koteswara Rao Putta (Technology Centre Mongstad).