Modeling of oxidative MEA degradation

Considerable amount of work had been recently done researching the degradation of solvents for CO₂ post combustion capture, especially for the benchmark solvent MEA. The degradation of the solvent can cause plant corrosion and losses in the process performance since the solvent might loses its capacity to absorb CO₂. Thus, a better understanding of this phenomena is important for the overall process performance. Oxidative degradation is likely to occur at absorber conditions due to the presence of oxygen in the flue gas. Differently from the thermal degradation, the oxidative degradation is not well understood. This work presents a preliminary attempt to rigorously model the degradation of solvents for CO₂ capture. Experimental data available in the literature were used to regress some of the model parameters. Several assumptions had to be made due to the lack of knowledge. The model, however, does a reasonable job of representing the dynamic trends of the oxidative degradation in the MEA system. This model is still under further development and new components, experiments and reactions are being implemented in the model.