Nitrosamine Formation Mechanism in Amine-Based CO2 Capture: Experimental Validation

Abstract This work presents qualitative experimental validation of nitrosamine mechanism previously proposed by our group which stated that, without nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), nitrosamine could form from secondary amine reaction with only nitric oxide (NO), oxygen (O 2 ), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). Experimentally, N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) from diethylamine reaction was confirmed by detection in both liquid and gas phases. If diethylamine could form NDEA with only NO, O 2 , SO 2 and CO 2 , other secondary amines used more commercially (e.g. piperazine (PZ) and its derivatives and diethanolamine) in the capture of CO 2 could potentially form their corresponding nitrosamines under similar conditions.