LAUSR

Abstract The CO 2 absorption performance of aqueous 1-(2-hydroxyethyl)pyrrolidine (1-(2-HE)PRLD) was studied with respect to kinetics (i.e., in terms of the pseudo-first-order rate constant ( k o ) and second-order reaction rate constant ( k 2 ), obtained using the stopped-flow apparatus). CO 2 equilibrium solubility and heat of CO 2 absorption were evaluated at the temperature range of 293–313 K in the 1-(2-HE)PRLD concentration range of 0.20–1.00 mol/L for kinetics and at 2 M for CO 2 solubility. The values of k o were then represented using the base-catalyzed hydration mechanism, which gave an acceptable AAD of 10%. In addition, Bronsted plots of k 2 vs. pKa were developed to predict k 2 using pKa values of various tertiary amines. In addition, the CO 2 equilibrium solubility and CO 2 absorption heat were obtained in this work. Based on a comparison with other amines such as MEA, MDEA and 1DMA2P, 1-(2-HE)PRLD showed better performance in terms of CO 2 equilibrium solubility (DEAB > 1-(2-HE)PRLD > 1-(2HE)PP > 1DMA2P > MDEA > MEA > DEA), kinetics (MEA > DEA > DEAB > 1-(2-HE)PRLD > 1-(2-HE)PP > DMMEA > 1DMA2P > MDEA.) and CO 2 absorption heat (MEA > DEA > MDEA > DEAB > 1-(2-HE)PRLD > 1-(2HE)PP > 1DMA2P). Therefore, 1-(2-HE)PRLD could be considered as a good alternative solvent for CO 2 capture. A correlation between kinetics and heat of CO 2 absorption has been developed to guide the design of what can be considered to be ideal amine solvents for CO 2 capture.