Enhancing CO2 Desorption Efficiency in Activated MDEA Using Titanium Oxyhydrate Particles

The urgent global issue of climate change caused by rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels has led to the widespread use of gas separation processes. Among the available processes, chemical absorption has received more attention due to its maturity and higher efficiency compared to others. However, the high energy consumption during the desorption step poses several technical challenges, limiting its industrial applications. To overcome those challenges, several research studies have been conducted to improve the performance of the desorption process. In particular, various types of catalysts have been tested to improve the performance of the CO2 desorption process. Among the available catalysts, Titanium Oxyhydrate (TiO(OH)2) has shown remarkable characteristics for replacing conventional catalysts, mainly due to its stability and the potential for increasing the CO2 desorption rate. However, limited studies have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the CO2 desorption process, especially by utilizing commercial solvents such as piperazine (PZ) promoted methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). Hence, this study aims to evaluate the stability of TiO(OH)2 as a catalyst during the CO2 desorption process using various characterization techniques. The CO2 desorption performance is also assessed under different operating conditions. Moreover, the regeneration energy is determined and reported as the sensible heat duty per released CO2. The results show no significant difference between fresh and cycled TiO(OH)2, indicating its substantial thermal stability. Furthermore, a notable rise of 19.58% is observed in desorption rate while utilizing TiO(OH)2 with a mass concentration of 5 wt%, reflecting less energy consumption. These findings suggest that TiO(OH)2 could serve as a transformative catalyst in industrial-scale CO2 desorption processes, potentially paving the way for more sustainable CO2 capture technologies.