posters 5th Asia-Pacific NMR Symposium 2013

Enhanced CO2 absorption rate of MDEA by Carbonic Anhdyrase (#145)

Soon Kwan Jeong 1 , Mari Vinoba 1 , YeoIl Yoon 1 , Sung Cahn Nam 1
  1. Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon, South Korea

Since the industrial revolution, large quantities of greenhouse gases (CO2) have been emitted into the atmosphere, where they have accelerated global warming. The consumption of fossil fuel is directly correlated with the carbon dioxide emissions. The development of technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from industrial and power plants is the most important step to take for reducing these emissions. Various methods for CO2 separation and capture are being developed, and the post-combustion capture process using absorption-desorption has been determined to be the appropriate approach among currently available methods. Chemical absorption using an aqueous alkanolamine solution is one of the most mature technologies for CO2 capture. The tertiary amine N-methyl-2,2’-iminodiethanol (MDEA) is advantageous over the primary amine and secondary amines in that MDEA displays a low regeneration energy. Tertiary amines are limited by slow CO2 absorption rate, although the yield a high CO2 absorption volume and low corrosion. This study examined the attempts to increase the CO2 absorption rate of MDEA by combining of Carbonic anhydrase. The CO2 absorption rate and rate constant were obtained using a vapor-liquid equilibrium device. The underlying mechanisms of bicarbonate and carbamate formation reactions were elucidated by NMR spectral analysis. The results supported the conclusion that MDEA did not produce carbamates via direct reaction with CO2. Carbonic anhydrase is a zinc metalloenzyme that catalyzes the interconversion of CO2 and bicarbonate. Hydration of CO2 by MDEA in the presence of carbonic anhydrase directly produced bicarbonate. The addition of carbonic anhydrase increased the CO2 absorption rate in MDEA.