Measurement of vapour-liquid equilibrium and e-NRTL model development of CO2 absorption in aqueous dipropylenetriamine

Vapour-liquid equilibrium (VLE) of CO2 in aqueous dipropylenetriamine (DPTA) is investigated experimentally using a stirred equilibrium cell setup. Equilibrium solubility of CO2 is measured in the temperature and pressure range of (313-333) K and (1-100) kPa respectively. Composition of aqueous DPTA solvent used for the absorption study is in the range of (5-15) mass%. Experimental data shows higher CO2 loading capacity of this solvent compared to conventional solvents like monoethanolamine (MEA), 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP), and N-methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) as well as recently developed polyamine solvents like aminoethylethanolamine (AEEA), piperazine (PZ), and hexamethylenediamine (HMDA). Experimental VLE data is then correlated using the electrolyte non-random two-liquid (e-NRTL) theory which is an activity coefficient-based model for the electrolyte system. Data regression system (DRS) in Aspen Plus (R) (V8.8) is employed to fit the e-NRTL model equation with the experimental data by regressing the model parameters. Model-predicted data is found to be in good agreement with the experimental VLE data with an average absolute deviation of 22.3%. Performance of aqueous DPTA solvent is also analysed by predicting solvent capacity, equilibrium liquid-phase speciation, and heat of CO2 absorption using the newly developed e-NRTL model for the investigated system.