Determination of Chemical Species in MDEA – Carbon Dioxide – Water System by Raman Spectroscopy

Alkanolamines based carbon dioxide absorption from flue gases remains the most industrially implemented technique. The effective design of absorbers and associated equipment requires robust thermodynamic and kinetic models thus, instigating research efforts in chemical speciation and characterization of CO2 loaded alkanolamine solutions. In this study, the potential of Raman spectroscopy has been investigated to determine the in situ chemical speciation in MDEA – CO2 – Water system. The Raman spectra have been fitted to thermodynamic values using principal component regression. Results are in good agreement for carbonate, bicarbonate, MDEA and protonated MDEA chemical species.