A novel biphasic
solvent consisting of diethylenetriamine (DETA),
2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP), and pentamethyldiethylenetriamine
(PMDETA) is considered as a promising CO2-capturing candidate
because of its high absorption capacity, favorable phase separation
behavior, fast desorption rate, and high cyclic capacity. In the present
work, reaction kinetics and thermodynamics of CO2 absorption
into the DETA-AMP-PMDETA biphasic solvent were studied. The kinetics
process of CO2 absorption was described using the zwitterion
mechanism and invoking the two-film theory. Under the fast pseudo-first-order
regime, kinetics parameters, e.g., overall reaction rate constant
(k
ov,mix), second-order rate constant
(k
2,mix), and enhancement factor (E), were determined. Kinetics results indicated that the
CO2 reaction rate was mainly determined by DETA and AMP
in the biphasic system, while PMDETA molecules would aggregate to
form PMDETA clusters, which limited the absorption of CO2 to a certain extent. On the other hand, thermodynamics results showed
that the regeneration heat of DETA-AMP-PMDETA biphasic solvents could
be significantly reduced compared with that of MEA. In particular,
the regeneration heat of the solvent 0.5 mol·L–1 (M) DETA + 1.5 M AMP + 3 M PMDETA (0.5D1.5A3P) was only 1.83 GJ·ton–1 CO2, which was approximately 52% lower
than that of 30 wt % MEA. This finding suggested that the DETA-AMP-PMDETA
biphasic solvent may be a good alternative to MEA to advance energy-efficient
and economical CO2 capture.