Post-combustion CO₂ capture and recovery by pure activated methyldiethanolamine in crossflow membrane contactors having coated hollow fibers

Gas absorption and stripping using membrane contactors is one of a number of carbon capture and storage technologies being investigated for separating CO₂ from flue gas. Energy consumption in CO₂ absorption-stripping employing amine-containing aqueous absorbent solutions is strongly influenced by demanding stripping conditions involving higher temperatures. The utility of using pure methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) activated by piperazine as a reactive absorbent was studied using a compact hollow fiber device for the absorber as well as the stripper. Water needed for reactive absorption of CO₂ in tertiary amine MDEA was obtained from simulated humidified flue gas stream which is saturated with moisture in actual practice. This study investigated also the absorption and stripping performances of aqueous absorbent solutions containing 80% and 90% activated MDEA (aMDEA). Considerable CO₂ stripping from CO₂-loaded pure aMDEA absorbent was achieved at 92 °C while absorption was carried out at 25–46 °C. Further, the CO₂ stripping rate was far higher for pure MDEA compared to the other two aMDEA solutions with water. Results are reported for the performance of the absorption-stripping process as a function of humidified simulated flue gas flow rate and the absorbent flow rate. High values of the overall mass transfer coefficients (MTCs) have also been reported for absorption. The highest volumetric gas phase based overall MTC obtained was 0.504 sec⁻¹. This system has a much lower absorbent circulation load, eliminates the energy needed to heat and evaporate water present in aqueous absorbent solutions and benefits from the absence of excess water during stripping.