System Development for On-line Monitoring using Raman Spectroscopy for CO2 Absorption by MEA

Among various kinds of technologies available, carbon dioxide (CO2) capture by monoethanolamine (MEA) is considered to be the most technically and scientifically matured technology which can be tested in industrial scale. When CO2 is absorbed by an MEA, a chemical reaction takes place which results to form different carbon and amine species in the system. In this work, Raman spectroscopy has been used to measure those concentrations in-situ. Since the instrument does not provide direct measurements, multivariate analysis has been used to develop models and predictions are made using these models for future measurements. This study presents the methodology of acquiring measurements by the Raman spectroscopy for MEA-CO2-H2O system, transferring the measurement data into Matlab/Labview, converting data into concentration values and presenting the results in a graphical user interface. This software based platform makes the Raman spectroscopy to be accessed as a real-time instrument in CO2 capture plants.