Screening of cyclic amines and ionic liquids and their mixtures for carbon capture: solubility, kinetics, calorimetry and computational modeling studies

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Capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) has been identified as one of the key measures for the mitigation of greenhouse gases emissions in Canada. This is especially important in Western Canada where the impacts of Kyoto protocol could otherwise be severe. The economical removal of carbon dioxide is also vital to the sustainable development of Canada's coal and oil sand reserves. There is a worldwide interest in finding new sources of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery. Using present day technology, even when CO2 can be sold as a by-product (enhanced oil recovery), the capture of carbon dioxide is economically attractive only when the oil price is high. The proposed research study has as main objective to screen new promising cyclic polyamines, ionic liquids and amino acids. These solvents will be tested in terms of their capacity for CO2 absorption, rate of absorption and heat of regeneration. The selected solvents should be better than those presently used in the gas, petrochemical and power generation industries. In parallel, a comprehensive computational study will help the screening process for the new amines and ionic liquids. It will also confirm the most favorable mechanisms in the amine-CO2 reactions, and will allow for a better understanding of the nature of the absorption of CO2 in ionic liquids. New measurements of the heat of regeneration of amines in the newly designed flow calorimeter will shed some lights on the nature of the absorption of the CO2 in ionic liquids. The longer term objective of this research proposal is, based on the tends obtained in experimental work, study new "virtual" amines and ionic liquids capable of absorbing more CO2, faster and with a lower heat of regeneration that what is presently available in industry.