Study on CO2 absorption-mineralization characteristics of mixed amine solution coupled with CaO and key influencing factors in mineralization process

Amine CO2 capture is an effective post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) technology, while CO2 mineral carbonation is a safe and stable method for CO2 storage. In this paper, these two methods were combined, and the CO2 absorption-mineralization performance of mixed amine solution coupled with CaO under different ratios of mixed amine solution, temperature, reaction time and CaO addition ratio were studied by using MEA/MDEA mixed amine solution as the CO2 absorbent and using CaO as the CO2 mineralizing raw material. The results show that CaO could effectively mineralize the CO2 absorbed in MEA/MDEA solution, realizing the regeneration of MEA/MDEA solution simultaneously under normal temperature and pressure. Meanwhile, the MEA/MDEA solution can still maintain a high CO2 conversion rate (77.4%) and CO2 cycle loading (1.03 mol/L) after five cycles of absorption-mineralization experiments. The FT-IR and XRD analyses reveal that the addition of CaO makes a large amount of Ca2+ and OH− into the MEA/MDEA solution, which could react with and protonated amine in the solution to form calcium carbonate precipitate and free amine respectively, thus realizing the mineralization of CO2 and the regeneration of MEA/MDEA solution. The main component of solid products obtained is calcium carbonate, and calcite is its main crystal form.