Ionic liquid (1-butyl-3-metylimidazolium methane sulphonate) corrosion and energy analysis for high pressure CO2 absorption process

Abstract

This study explores the possible use of ionic liquids as a solvent in a commercial high-pressure CO2 removal process, to gain environmental and energy benefits. There are two main constraints in realizing this: ionic liquids can be corrosive, specifically when mixed with a water/amine solution with dissolved O2 & CO2; and CO2 absorption within this process is not very well understood. Therefore, scavenging CO2 to ppm levels from process gas comes with several risks. We used 1-butyl-3-methylimidazoium methane sulphonate [bmim][MS] as an ionic liquid because of its high corrosiveness (due to its acidic nature) to estimate the ranges of expected corrosion in the process. TAFEL technique was used to determine these rates. Further, the process was simulated based on the conventional absorption-desorption process using ASPEN HYSYS v 8.6. After preliminary model validation with the amine solution, [bmim][MS] was modeled based on the properties found in the literature. The energy comparison was then provided and the optimum ratio of the ionic liquid/amine solution was calculated.