Rapid preliminary screening of amine absorbents for post-combustion CO2 capture

A multi-criteria rapid preliminary screening method for absorbents has been proposed. • Quasi-cycle capacity, absorption heat, and boiling point indicators were highly important for amine absorbents. • TEDA-DMEN exhibited a large quasi-cycle capacity, a low CO 2 absorption heat, and a low cost. The core of the CO 2 capture technology based on chemical absorption lies in the optimization of the performance of the absorbent. However, the current methods and indicators used to evaluate the performance of absorbents are limited, particularly those that incorporate energy consumption. This paper proposes a multi-criteria rapid preliminary screening method for absorbents, covering seven key indicators of the amine absorbent for CO 2 capture, to characterize CO 2 reaction performance, energy consumption performance, physical properties, and economic performance. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)-entropy weight Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method was used to rapidly screen 18 amine absorbents in three categories. The results showed that the evaluation method was primarily suitable for aqueous amines and could also be extended to other types of absorbents. In addition, the combined subjective and objective weighting results indicated that the quasi-cycle capacity, absorption heat, and boiling point indicators were highly important for amine absorbents. The comprehensive index (CI) demonstrated that among the three amine categories, AEEA, PS, and TEDA-DMEN were the best absorbents for CO 2 capture, respectively. In particular, TEDA-DMEN exhibited a large quasi-cycle capacity (0.560 mol/mol), as well as low CO 2 absorption heat (66.87 kJ/mol), sensible heat (37.61 kJ/mol), and cost (0.104 $/g). This paper provides a theoretical basis and methodological support for developing high-efficiency, low-energy, and low-cost absorbents for CO 2 capture.