ORIGINAL PAPER Physical properties of aqueous blend of diethanolamine and sarcosine: experimental and correlation study Sahil Garg 2 • Ghulam Murshid 1 • Farouq S. Mjalli 1 • Waqar Ahmad 1 Received: 10 January 2017 / Accepted: 7 March 2017 Ó Institute of Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2017 Abstract In this work, physical properties such as den- sity, refractive index and viscosity of aqueous diethano- lamine sarcosinate (DEA-SAR) solution were measured at different temperatures. The knowledge of physical properties is necessary for the process design and simu- lation of acid gas absorber plant. Various concentrations of aqueous DEA-SAR solutions (0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25 and 0.30) were investigated at temperature ranging from 298.15 to 333.15 K. The reported results showed an increment behavior in the physical properties with the increase in concentration isothermally, and a decreasing one with the rise in temperature of the solution at any given concentration. Empirical models were applied to correlate the experimental data of each physical property as a function of both concentration and temperature. A quantitative analysis of variation was carried out for estimating the significance of the physical property’s data. Keywords Density  Refractive index  Viscosity  Diethanolamine  Sarcosine  CO 2 capture Introduction The energy consumption of the world is increasing at a rapid rate. Global energy consumption has increased by 42.6% in between 1990 and 2008, and it is anticipated to rise by roughly the same amount between 2008 and 2030. As of 2012, fossil fuels—coal, natural gas and crude oil provide 83% of our primary energy and while there is a steady investment in renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, and biomass. It is expected that fossil fuel will cover the 79 % of the global energy needs by 2030 (IEA 2012). The combustion of fossil fuels, however, produces carbon dioxide (CO 2 )—a greenhouse gas. The enormous quantity of CO 2 emitted into the atmosphere by our fossil fuel consumption thus far has resulted in an increase in the atmospheric CO 2 concentration from 298 ppm in 1905 to 404 ppm in 2016 (NOAA 2016). This increased CO 2 concentration has been linked to a rise in worldwide tem- peratures—one of many consequences of the global phe- nomenon of climate change. Various strategies have been proposed to mitigate the disastrous consequences of cli- mate change. These include short-term, low-cost low-im- pact options like boosting the use of energy efficient technology; long-term, high-cost high-impact options such as reducing or completely eliminating fossil fuels from the global energy mix and medium-term, moderate-cost high- impact choices like the switch from coal to natural gas as well as carbon capture and storage (Pacala and Socolow 2004). Flue gas from power plants is a mixture of several gases in varying proportions. Combustion of natural gas produces flue gas containing 3–5% CO 2 , a majority of nitrogen (N 2 ), excess oxygen (O 2 ), argon (Ar), minute quantities of nitrogen oxides (NO x ) and water vapor (H 2 O). Flue gas from coal fired power plants is composed of 13–15% CO 2 , & Ghulam Murshid g.murshid@squ.edu.om 1 Department of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman 2 Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia 123 Chem. Pap. DOI 10.1007/s11696-017-0158-z