How can i create an Amine fliter

[Aize]

I need to build a filter (for my grade 11 science project) that when flue gas passes through the filter the Carbon(IV)Oxide is trapped while the rest of the component of the flue gas pass through. I've done some research and found out that amines absorb Carbon(IV)Oxide. So I was wondering how I would go about building a small scale amine filter to absorb CO2 gas.

Thanks in Advance.

[norman40]

Hi Aize,

A water solution of a ethanolamine can absorb carbon dioxide. A suitable ethanolamine concentration range is between 10% and 50% by weight. The flue gas must be bubbled through the ethanolamine solution. A simple way to do this is to run the gas through a tube immersed in the solution.

The following article contains information about the amine reaction with carbon dioxide and a schematic of a test apparatus:

http://www.asianjournalofchemistry.co.i ... ID=26_2_11

I hope this helps. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman

[Aize]

Hi Norman,

Thank you so much, the article really helped.

Would the temperature of the gas decompose the compound, for instance when being applied to the exhaust of a car to absorb the CO2 from the exhaust?

Also, what do you think about the idea of applying a filter containing the CO2 absorbent to the exhaust of cars to reduce CO2 emissions? Do you have any critics?

Thank you,
Aize.

[norman40]

Hi Aize,

I don't know the temperature at which ethanolamine decomposes. But a hot gas (above 100 degrees C) would quickly evaporate the water from the ethanolamine solution. Some provision to cool the gas would be needed to make this kind of carbon dioxide scrubber workable. There are solid materials (calcium oxide) that are used for carbon dioxide scrubbers. And some of these perform well at higher temperatures. Additional information is available here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubber

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide

Burning gasoline produces a lot of carbon dioxide (about 8.8 Kg of CO2 per gallon). In a year of normal driving the weight of carbon dioxide produced easily exceeds the weight of the car. That means that any kind of CO2 absorber would have to be fairly large and it would need frequent emptying and filling with fresh absorbent. So a car exhaust scrubber is probably not feasible.

I hope this helps. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman

[Aize]

Hi Norman,

It would take a great deal of work for the CO2 scrubber to be applied to the exhaust of a car. But is there any other area where it can be used and it can be beneficial?

I was thinking generators, because they also produce large amounts of CO2.

I’m just really fascinated about the technology we have to absorb CO2 and I want to apply it somewhere it would be feasible for my science project and because CO2 emissions are getting really dangerous.

Aize.

[norman40]

Hi Aize,

As you might expect there is considerable interest in finding ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Some online searching will return quite a bit of information about how carbon dioxide scrubbers might be used. A few example articles are:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/5313 ... ally-work/

https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/tech/carb ... scrubbers/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_ca ... nd_storage

I hope this helps. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman

[Aize]

Hi Norman,

It’s been sometime and I’ve been going through the project for a while now and gone through a lot of prototype design. But I just wanted to ask if you think that creating this kind of product is a feasible idea? A product that filters CO2 (i.e the amine filter) on a small scale but can impact many people. Like can the big industry filters be brought down to a small size and distributed around so even if the amount of CO2 removed is not as high per filters but the volume and distribution can be massive.

[norman40]

Hello Aize,

Some of the processes for removing CO2 from air are straightforward and it may be possible to make scaled down units as you propose. But deploying a large number of small processors raises some economic and logistic questions that you might want to research and consider while evaluating your idea.

A few questions that come to mind are as follows.

How many small-scale processors would be needed to significantly reduce atmospheric CO2?
Where would these processors be located?
What is the processor cost and the cost of operating it?
How are these costs paid?
What happens to the trapped CO2?

I hope this helps. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman