1 Heat duty of solid acid catalyzed CO 2 desorption from aqueous MEA and MEA+MDEA Wayuta Srisang 1 , Fatemeh Pouryousefi 1 , Priscilla Anima Osei 1 , Benjamin Decardi-Nelson 1 , Ananda Akachuku1 1 , Paitoon Tontiwachwuthikul 1 , Raphael Idem 1* 1 Clean Energy Technologies Research Institute, University of Regina, Regina, Canada, 3737 Wascana Parkway, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, srisangw@uregina.ca Abstract It is necessary to implement some form of a CO 2 capture technology in order to mitigate CO2 emissions and slow down global warming. Among all the CO 2 capture technologies, CO 2 capture by absorption using amine based solvents is currently seen as the most applicable and effective approach in post-combustion CO 2 capture (PCCC) processes. However, the integration of PCCC with a typical coal-fired power plant which is a big source of CO 2 emissions results in about 12.3% in energy penalty. This is equivalent to a decrease in the economic benefit of 29.5% (Liu et al., 2015). To lower this cost, many researchers have been focusing on new solvent development that can provide lower energy requirement in the regeneration process and process modification to minimize waste energy. Recently, Idem et al. (2011) proposed the introduction of a solid acid catalyst to aid in stripping CO 2 from a CO 2 -rich amine in order to lower energy requirement for solvent regeneration. However, the experiments were performed in a batch reactor. Consequently, the absolute heat duty was not measured. In this work, acid catalysts namely: HZSM-5 (Bronsted acid catalyst) and γ-Al 2 O 3 (Lewis acid catalyst) were tested for their ability to lower the regeneration heat duty of MEA 5 mol/L and the mixture of MEA 5 mol/L + MDEA 2 mol/L. Experimental section The experiments were performed in full cycle laboratory scale absorption and desorption process plant shown in Figure 1. The models for absorber and desorber are shown in Figure 2. In the experiments, 15 SLPM of 15% CO 2 in N 2 was fed to the bottom of the absorption column. The lean amine from the amine tank was pumped with a flow rate of 60 mL/min to the top of the absorber. Then, the rich amine leaves the absorber from the bottom. This rich amine coming out from the absorber was pumped through the lean-rich heat exchanger in order to be preheated by the hotter lean amine. Then, the warm rich amine is passed through a hot water heat exchanger. At this point the solution, which is heated to 92 o C, enters from the top of the regenerator where the catalysts bed had been installed. The average temperature inside the catalysts bed is approximately 85 o C. When the system reaches steady state, both the rich and lean amines, off gas composition, and CO 2 production rate were taken for analysis of concentration and CO 2 loading by the titration method.