Harvesting Electrical Power during Carbon Capture using Various Amine Solvents

There exists an urgent demand for the advancement of technologies that reduce and capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions to mitigate anthropogenic contributions to climate change. This paper compares the maximum power densities achieved from the combination of reverse electrodialysis (RED) with carbon capture (CC) using various CC solvents. Carbon capture reverse electrodialysis (CCRED) harvests energy from the salinity gradients generated from the reaction of CO₂ with specific solvents, generally amines. To eliminate the requirement of freshwater as an external resource, we took advantage of a semiclosed system that would allow the inputs to be industrial emissions and heat and the outputs to be electrical power, clean emissions, and captured CO₂. We assessed the power density that can be attained using CCRED with five commonly studied CC solvents: monoethanolamine (MEA), diethanolamine (DEA), N-methyldiethanolamine (MDEA), 2-amino-2-methyl-2-propanol (AMP), and ammonia. We achieved the highest power density, 0.94 W m–² cell–¹, using ammonia. This work provides a foundation for future iterations of CCRED that may help to incentivize adoption of CC technology.