Investigation of the Potential Application of Ultrasonic assisted Reactor to Capture Carbon dioxide (CO2) from various Industrial Gas Processing Stream using Green Deep Eutectic solvents

Power plants and sweetening of natural gas process are among the major sources of industrial CO2 emissions. Conventional CO2 absorption processes using amine-based chemicals suffer from solvent degradation, corrosion, and solvent regeneration efficiency problems. These limitations can be overcome by employing hybrid mixtures or by developing new solvents with improved and desired properties. These properties include low volatility, low thermal degradation, less toxic, high CO2 loading capacity and environmentally friendly compared to conventional amines [1-10]. These attributes can be achieved through the synthesis of tuned solvents such as Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES). Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES) represent a potential alternative to replace conventional solvents such as amines. DES are relatively new family of green solvents compared to ionic liquids (IL) which turned out to be costly for industrial application. The preliminary research on DES has shown promising results in terms of CO2 loading capacity, physical properties, ease of synthesis and cost effective compared to the conventional solvents. These positive outcomes encourage researchers to further explore and investigate these DES solvents for their application to replace the most widely used solvents such as monoethanolamine (MEA) and di-ethanolamine (MDEA) for CO2 capture from various industrial gaseous stream. The main objectives of this proposal are to synthesize novel DES solvents and explore potential activators (water, Sterically hindered amines) to enhance the CO2 loading capacities and to apply the ultrasonic waves induced reactor to measure the rate of absorption instead of using the conventional stirring reactors methods. The ultrasonic induction can enhance the gas-liquid mass transfer due to generation of oscillatory motions. This can reduced the equilibrium time between gas-solvent and consequently shorten the retention time. The combination of ultrasonic-assisted CO2 absorption and DESs techniques, could potentially lead to more efficient and sustainable CO2 absorption processes. However, more research is needed to fully understand the synergistic effects of these two techniques when combined. Therefore, through this work, a comprehensive fundamental data such as vapor equilibrium data between CO2 and DES will be collected which will serve as a landmark to develop an effective environmental friendly CO2 capture technology. This could be a significant contribution to the oil and gas industry in Oman.