Degradation of Aqueous Monoethanolamine Absorbent

The reversible chemical absorption using MEA (monoethanolamine), one of alkanolamine, is generally used as a conventionally method for capture. Even MEA absorbent has excellent reactivity with , it has been known to have the decrease of absorption capacity caused by , or other acid gases in flue gas, corrosion and thermal degradation. In this study, MEA solutions degraded in the steam reforming process of refinery used and the absorption performance were compared for the used of conventional MEA solution. In case of 30 wt% MEA and mixture of 20 wt% thermal degraded absorbent (DP) and 10 wt% PZ, the absorption capacities were 0.5365 mol-/mol-absorbent and 0.5939 mol-/mol-absorbent respectively. PZ added thermally degraded absorbent showed the enhanced absorption capacity. On the contrary, the absorption rates were 1.1610 ;min for 30 wt% MEA, 0.5310 ;min for mixture of 20 wt% thermal degraded absorbent (DP) and 10 wt% PZ and 0.3525 ;min for 30 wt% thermally degraded absorbent only. The absorption rates of PZ added thermally degraded absorbent was higher than that of thermally degraded absorbent only. Therefore, it can be confirmed that thermally degraded absorbent can be reused as an absorbent for by the addition of suitable additives.