A new mesoporous amine-TiO₂ based pre-combustion CO₂ capture technology

The objective of this study is to develop a new low-cost, highly selective, and stable sorbent based pre-combustion CO₂ capture. A high surface area titanium oxide (TiO₂) prepared by a template method and amine modified TiO₂ (M-TiO₂) were investigated for CO₂/CH₄ adsorption at conditions relevant to pre-combustion CO₂ capture. Single-component and binary CO₂/CH₄ adsorption tests at different operating conditions were performed in a fixed bed adsorber. Experimental results show that the selectivity of TiO₂ for separation of CO₂ from CO₂/CH₄ mixture can be significantly improved via amine modification. The selectivity of CO₂ over CH₄ for M-TiO₂ is enhanced to 22.1 at 333K and 35bar. Pure CO₂ or CH₄ can be obtained from the adsorber packed with M-TiO₂ through cyclic CO₂/CH₄ mixture gas adsorption and desorption. The study indicates that, as a pre-combustion sorbent, the inexpensive mesoporous M-TiO₂ is not only capable and stable, but also easily regenerated without loss of capacity and selectivity.