Annual review 2007 CO2 removal by aqueous ammonia scrubbing

The emission of CO2 from power plants and other industrial installations can be greatly reduced by removal of the CO2 from the waste gases such as flue gases. There is a number of commercially available technologies to separate CO2 from flue gases. These technologies are based on absorption, adsorption, membranes and other physical and biological separation methods.

The leading solvent process is an aqueous solution with mono-ethanolamine (MEA) in 30% by weight as the active ingredient. This amine based process is considered to be the state-of-the-art technology. However, one of the main disadvantages of this technology is the energy required for regeneration of the solvent. This is high, reducing the power plant efficiency, thereby increasing electricity production costs.