Demonstration of a novel instrument for online monitoring of absorber emissions to air

•A novel design for online gas and liquid measurements of absorber emission trace gas analysis has been demonstrated. The demonstrated concept performs continuous analysis of absorber emissions to air by sampling and analysis of condensate. The method represents an option for lowering costs by reducing labor-intensive manual gas sampling and analysis. It enables frequent monitoring of critical emissions from capture plant absorbers not previously reported.•The method is useful for trace pollutants such as nitrosamines which cannot be measured by conventional gas analysis like FTIR due to lower detection limit. The system avoids heated transfer lines which could decompose some components or induce artefact formation of nitrosamines during sampling. Online sampling and analysis of a nitrosamine present in ppbv-levels in the emissions to air from an amine absorber was successfully demonstrated with good agreement with manual impinger gas washing bottle measurements.•The presented methodology is generic and therefore allows for a wide range of applications covering analytes that demands complex work-up and derivatization of samples collected automatically by the autosampler functions of the mass spectrometer. Without the presence of an online MS-analyzer, the unit allows for recovery of frequent condensate samples which can be analyzed in the same manner as plant liquid samples for analysis. Samples can also be collected and stored for later analysis for investigation of other analytes of interest in a similar way as for conventional liquid samples from the process. This give relevant documentation about plant emissions to air that are not available from other online industrial analyzers. A novel concept for online monitoring of nitrosamines, solvent amines and their degradation products in amine absorber emissions to air was demonstrated at the Tiller CO2-lab pilot facility. The monitoring concept is based on SINTEF patent No. PCT/EP2011/073557. The measurement method applies gas sampling by capture of analytes in a condensate stream from a single stage condensate collector unit. An improved design for the SINTEF prototype for online gas and liquid measurements has been established as part of the CCUS-ALIGN project. The new design has low complexity and improved robustness, making it applicable as integrated part of industrial monitoring systems. The established prototype was successfully tested for monitoring of trace gas emission from a CO2 capture pilot pl