Advancing Post-Combustion CO2 Capture through Increased Mass Transfer and Lower Degradation

The goal of the proposed project is to address the challenges still present and significantly advance the deployment of post-combustion CO2 capture through the development of enabling UKy-CAER technologies. While constantly working to reduce the cost of CO2 capture via solvent development and process & heat integration, other critical elements including how to increase CO2 mass transfer, how to reduce solvent losses resulting from aerosol emission, and how to address the potential environmental issues from nitrosamine formation still need to be addressed. The specific objectives of this proposed study are to: 1) increase CO2 mass transfer into amine solvents through the development of dynamic polarity packing material that is designed to increase turbulent liquid flow; 2) investigate the additive to influence physical properties of solvent and their relationship to wettability, degradation and aerosols formation; and 3) neutralize nitrosamines derived from amine solvents through development of a electrochemical treatment process.