Review of pre-combustion capture and ionic liquid in carbon capture and storage

Global warming issue, which increasingly aggravates over time, necessitates the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology for its efficient mitigation. Among the major CCS technologies, post-combustion capture is the most established and commonly employed. However, it poses several energy and environment-related problems. As such, research and development of the pre-combustion carbon capture has been conducted to overcome the drawbacks of this conventional approach, and incorporation of ionic liquid (IL) has been increasingly given attention. This paper intends to review the carbon dioxide separation technologies and those related to IL in pre-combustion capture, pre-combustion capture research progress, pilot plant and commercial facilities, as well as modelling approach with special focus on the computer-aided molecular design (CAMD). In the last aspect, emphasis is given to the IL-based UNIFAC model, and key research gaps are identified from the review as general guidelines for the future research work and development in this particular field. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.