Dissolution of CO2 in aqueous solutions of alkanolamine
Résumé
Removal of acid gases is an important step of natural gases and industrial gas streams processing. Aqueous solutions of alkanolamines are well known to be efficient chemical solvents for the CO2 capture. Reliable experimental data for solubility and enthalpy of solution of acid gases in aqueous solutions of alkanolamines are required for the design of gas treating equipments and to develop thermodynamic models describing this process. A customized flow mixing units adapted to the SETARAM C-80 calorimeter [1,2] was used to measure the enthalpy of solution of CO2 with aqueous solutions of alkanolamines (MEA, DEA, TEA, AMP and MDEA). The experiments are carried out at constant temperature and pressure for different gas loading up to the saturation of the solvent (Fig. 1). The gas solubility can be determined from the analysis of the enthalpic data. Our solubilities were compared to available literature data [3,4]. The influence of pressure, temperature and amine composition was studied. The enthalpies of solution of CO2 in these aqueous alkanolamine solutions were estimated by a simple model [5] based on ideal property considerations.