Energetics of Electrochemically-mediated Amine Regeneration

Cost-effective, large-scale carbon dioxide capture is a critical technology for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, and current capture technologies are energy intensive and difficult to deploy in existing power plants. We have previously introduced a novel electrochemically-mediated process for amine regeneration, and demonstrated its feasibility with a proof-of-concept system that can efficiently modulate amine affinity to carbon dioxide under the effect of redox-responsive molecules. The electrochemical process is simple to install, obviating the need for expensive retrofits. In addition, due to its targeted nature, the process has the potential for lower energy consumption as compared with the thermal amine capture process. In this work, we analyze the energy consumption of the electrochemical process, building from thermodynamic lower bounds, and addressing electrochemical kinetics, transport requirements as well compression and pumping energy. The analysis suggests that the electrochemical process can generate carbon dioxide at the conditions required for transportation with an electrical energy consumption of less than 50 kJ per mole of carbon dioxide captured and compressed. The electrochemical process efficiency can be further improved by optimizing flow design and utilizing additives to reduce activation overpotentials.