Gas Chromatographic Method Development for Analysis of Samples from a Carbon Capture Pilot Plant

Sammanfattning: In response to the escalating threat of climate change, carbon capture and storage have gained increasing attention as an important component in mitigating the global carbon dioxide emissions. Substantial research efforts have focused on enhancing the energy efficiency and availability of these technologies. At the Department of Chemical Engineering at Lund University, research is being carried out to investigate a novel absorption system and its potential as an alternative to more conventional systems. The absorption mixture consists of the sterically hindered amine 2-amino-2-metyl-1-propanol (AMP) and the organic solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). As part of the research, the absorption system is being tested and evaluated on a pilot plant scale, operating in an industrial setting at Växjö Energi AB. In this thesis, gas chromatographic methods were investigated as analysis methods for measuring AMP and DMSO concentrations in the pilot plant. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis were performed, and the methods were validated based on selectivity, linearity and precision. Three different solvents were investigated, acetonitrile, sulfamic acid and sulfuric acid. The results showed that qualitative and quantitative gas chromatographic analysis can be performed to give estimations of the AMP and DMSO concentrations. Acetonitrile proved to perform best as the solvent and a linear response between detector response and concentration could be obtained for both AMP and DMSO. The results also suggested that large amounts of water in samples analyzed with the gas chromatographic set up caused unstable detector response. Analysis of samples from the pilot plant demonstrated a more pronounced concentration decrease of AMP compared to DMSO, after gas streams were introduced into the pilot, indicating that AMP likely participates in reactions. It was also shown that the concentrations of AMP and DMSO in the gas streams leaving the pilot were small, implying that the implementation of this absorption system into various processes would result in only minor emissions of the absorption mixture.