Thermal Degradation of Morpholine in CO2 Post-combustion Capture

Abstract

Aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) has been used as benchmark solvent in CO2 capture systems due to its fast absorption kinetics, high cyclic capacity and low cost. However, operational challenges make MEA potentially less attractive, and therefore; there has been a high demand to develop new solvent systems, such as morpholine (MOR). Accordingly, in this work, thermal degradation studies using MEA or MOR have been conducted under stripper conditions in a post-combustion CO2 capture system to identify operational challenges associated with amines degradation. The comparison of MEA and MOR degradation shows that MOR is more thermally stable when compared with MEA in the presence of CO2 at stripper operating conditions studied here. Initial test results identified 1-(2-Hydroxyethyl)-2-imidazolidinone as thermal degradation of MEA, but they were not observed for MOR.