CO2 Capture with Potassium Carbonate and Alcohol

Abstract

Traditional CO2 capture technologies using amine-based sorbents are very energy intensive and result in secondary environmental pollution originating from amine degradation. In this work, a low temperature, energy saving and environmentally friendly CO2 capture method has been investigated using potassium carbonate-alcohols-water mixtures as sorbents. The addition of certain amounts of alcohols, especially methanol to the potassium carbonate solution can significantly increase the CO2 absorption and desorption amounts, as well as the capture capacity. The absorbent containing 50 wt% (~90 g) methanol, ~20 g potassium carbonate, and ~90 g water has proven to be the best mixture for CO2 capture using this inorganic capture method. This research demonstrates a catalytic CO2 capture route that is promising to be economical as well as environmentally safe, and energy saving.