Comprehensive characterisation of regenerable amine solvents used for CO2 and SO2 capture

加拿大有丰富的化石燃料。随着全球能源需求的增长，由于成本效益，我们将在未来几十年继续开采、提炼和使用煤炭、石油和天然气。不幸的是，燃烧化石燃料会产生温室气体（GHG），如二氧化碳（CO2）和二氧化硫（SO2），它们对全球变暖的贡献是不可否认的。通过气候变化协议，各国必须迅速减少这些污染物的排放。加拿大的目标是到2030年将温室气体排放量减少到比2005年的7.49亿吨二氧化碳当量水平低30% (www.ec.gc.ca/GES-GHG)，因此需要有效的碳捕获技术。我们的行业合作伙伴开发了一种创新的溶剂工艺，可在化石燃料燃烧过程中从烟道气中化学去除约120吨二氧化碳当量/天的二氧化碳。在吸收污染物后，溶剂再生，高纯度的二氧化碳被回收利用，而不是释放到大气中。这些溶剂由胺（含氮化合物）组成，由于在CO2捕获和溶剂再生过程中发生的化学反应，它们会随着时间的推移而降解。为了优化捕集过程，使捕集过程节能，使企业达到法定的碳减排目标，有必要确定和量化所有存在的化学物质，并了解溶剂降解的机制。然而，这对我们的合作伙伴来说是个问题。利用我们在化学分析方面的专业知识，我们建议开发新的分析方法来表征可再生溶剂。利用新的亲水液相色谱和质谱分析方法，我们旨在鉴定胺类溶剂中的所有物种，在整个捕获过程中监测它们，并探索溶剂降解机制。这最终将使我们的合作伙伴能够优化溶剂成分，从而在工业现场实现更好的CO2/SO2捕获和能源效率。该项目的成果将为加拿大能源部门带来经济效益，通过减少与气候变化有关的温室气体产生社会效益，并通过改进胺分析方法带来科学效益。

Canada is rich in fossil fuels. With energy demand rising worldwide, we will continue to extract, refine and use coal, oil and natural gas for many decades due to the cost benefits. Unfortunately, burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gases (GHG) like carbon dioxide, CO2, and sulfur dioxide, SO2, whose contribution to global warming is undeniable. Through climate change agreements, countries must rapidly reduce their emissions of these pollutants. Canada's target is to reduce GHG emissions to 30% below the 2005 level of 749 megatonnes CO2 equivalent by 2030 (www.ec.gc.ca/GES-GHG), thus efficient carbon capture technologies are needed. Our industry partner has developed an innovative solvent process to chemically remove CO2 on the order of 120 tonnes CO2 eq./day from flue gases during combustion of fossil fuel. After absorbing the pollutants, the solvent is regenerated and highly purified CO2 is recovered for use rather than being released into the atmosphere. These solvents are composed of amines (nitrogen-containing compounds), which degrade with time due to the chemical reactions taking place during CO2 capture and solvent regeneration. To optimize the capture process and make it energy efficient for companies to meet legislated carbon abatement targets, it is essential to identify and quantitate all chemical species present and understand the mechanism of solvent degradation. However, this has been problematic for our partner. With our expertise in chemical analysis, we propose to develop new analytical methods to characterize the regenerable solvents. Using new hydrophilic liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry methods, we aim to identify all the species in the amine solvents, monitor them throughout the capture process and explore the solvent degradation mechanisms. This will ultimately allow our partner to optimize the solvent composition for better CO2/SO2 capture and energy efficiency at industrial sites. The outcomes of this project will result in economic benefits in Canada's energy sector, social benefits by reducing GHGs linked to climate change and scientific benefits through improved amine analysis methods.