Experimental Approach to Mimic and Study Degradation of Solvents Used for Post-combustion CO2 Capture

Abstract

A degradation experimental protocol with 30%-wt MEA solvent has been applied successfully on a lab-scale experiment set up to simulate the operating conditions seen by the solvent during cycles of absorption and stripping of the CO2 capture process. Degradation campaign lasted about 750 hours (750 cycles) in the presence of a synthetic flue gas containing 82% of N2, 15% of CO2, 3% of O2. An important number of degradation products (more than 30) was detected and most of the species were identified in agreement with literature.