IPE researchers made an overview on the CO2 capture with ion liquids, a promising technology which has been made significant progress recently, and then they clarified the research goal of this technology.

The latest research on the CO2 separation, CO2 capture mechanisms as well as transport properties and hydrodynamics of ionic liquid fluids were discussed with more focus on the potential industrial applications. Some perspectives of the novel technologies and challenges in future were present.

Researchers investigated and compared CO2 absorption performance of conventional ionic liquids, task-specific ionic liquids and ionic liquid mixture solvents. Based on the results of experiments, they has clarified the main task of future work is to design new ionic liquids or mixtures with high gravimetric CO2 capacity, high selectivity, and lower viscosity so as to improve the competitive edge of ionic liquids solvents. However, one of the big challenges is how to screen the suitable ionic liquids from numerous candidates.

The capture mechanisms of chemisorption and physisorption were explained with experimental characteristics and molecular simulation, which showed more and more important roles for screening suitable ionic liquids from tremendous candidates.

Studies on the transport and the fluid dynamic property as well as the process design of ionic liquid-based carbon capture process are reviewed considering scaling-up application. Based what mentioned above, they concluded that the transport properties and hydrodynamics as well as kinetics of IL-based CO2 capture systems should be studied both in respect of experimental measurement and CFD calculation in order to obtain the optimal structure and the size of each unit. In addition, process simulation and related thermodynamic models and phase equilibrium should be paid attention to.

Among the emerging technologies, capturing CO2 with ionic liquids is a promising way to overcome current drawbacks due to their unique properties, such as negligible vapor pressures, high thermal stability, strong solubility capacity and tunability of structure and property.

During the coming decades, addressing climate change concerns will likely require significant contributions from CO2 Capture.

The paper was published in Energy & Environmental Science