Study On The Solubility And Foaming OfC02 In Aqueous Amine Solutions

The desire to alleviate the problem of global warming has resulted in environmental
concern over a reduction of greenhouse emission especially CO2 from industrial sources.
The removal of CO2 from natural gas purification and petrochemicals manufacturing is a
very important operation in industry. Absorption with amine-based absorbents is the most
common technology for CO2 removal today. In view of this, many research works have
been done to determine the CO2 solubility in different types of amines at different
temperatures and pressures and to identify the way to reduce its operational problems
such as foaming. The objectives of this experimental based project, 'Study on the
solubility and foaming of CO2 in aqueous amine solutions' are to determine the CO2
loading capacity in selected single and mixed amine solutions at different temperatures
and foaming tendency of CO2 absorption in amine solutions. This study focused on the
CO2 solubility in primary, secondary and tertiary amines and also mixture of these
amines with variation of temperature and concentration. The method used for the
solubility test is by directing the CO2 and N2 gas into the conical flask that contains
amine solution and the outlet gas is analyzed by IR Gas Analyzer to determine the CO2
slippage. In the foaming test, a small amount of petrol as the source of contaminant is
added into the amine solution. The height of the foam and its foaming phenomena are
considered. The amine solution with highest loading CO2 capacity and the effects of
temperature, concentration, concentration ratio and foaming can be determined from the
results. Mixed amine gives the highest loading capacity compared to the single amines.
For the temperature ranging from 25-40°C the absorption capacity increases as the
temperature increases. Within solvent concentration of 10-30 weight percent (wt%), the
absorption capacity is increased at higher solvent concentration. Primary amine has the
highest foaming tendency compared to the secondary and tertiary amines.