Among the carbon capture technologies closest to implementation, post combustion capture (PCC) and industrial source capture based on CO2 absorption in liquids is the most mature, but still shows a large improvement potential.
The main challenges for PCC are energy requirement and possible emissions. A break-through on these issues requires deep molecular structure-property based understanding of the most promising current solvent system combined with transposition of this knowledge into novel chemistry.
This project aims at understanding the mechanisms behind the special DEEA/MAPA performance. Our hypothesis is that the promising properties of this de-mixing solvent system could be due to formation of an ionic liquid (or ionic liquid-like) phase influencing CO2 reactivity through the specific solvent structure.
Once we have understood the de-mixing solvent systems, we will use this understanding to develop even better solvents e.g. having the combined properties of low heat of reaction (60-65 kJ/mol CO2), high temperature sensitivity allowing stripping at elevated pressure (10-20 Bar) or low temperature (60-90C) and good cyclic capacity. For this purpose we will use NMR (1H, 13C, 15N, etc) spectroscopic solvent analysis combined with targeted characterization of the solvents (performance screening, VLE, kinetics). If we succeed, this will imply a real break-through in solvent technology.