Phil Jackson

N‐Nitrosopiperazines form at high pH in post‐combustion capture solutions containing piperazine: a low‐energy collisional behaviour study

During the process of exploring aqueous piperazine chemistry under simulated flue-gas scrubbing conditions, positive-ion electrospray ionisation mass spectrometric (ESI-MS) analyses of the resulting reaction mixtures in a triple quadrupole system revealed the presence of peaks at m/z 116 and 145, the putative N-nitroso derivatives of piperazine. Confirmation of the presence of these species in the reaction mixtures was achieved using collision-induced dissociation experiments. A purchased standard, together with in-house synthesised N-nitrosopiperazine standards (including N-nitroso derivatives derived from deuterium-labelled precursor materials), were used for this purpose. Across a small range of collision energies, large fluctuations in the abundance of the two major product ions of protonated N-nitrosopiperazine, m/z 86 and 85, were observed. Using B3LYP/6-311 + +G(d,p) computations, the potential energy surface was determined for loss of NO and [H,N,O]. At an activation energy slightly in excess of 1 eV, intramolecular isomerisation precedes loss of NO (m/z 86) via a 4,1 H-shift, and at activation energies between 2.1-2.3 eV, consecutive loss of NO and atomic hydrogen competes with the direct loss of nitrosyl hydride (m/z 85). It is recommended that any multiple reaction monitoring method for quantifying N-nitrosopiperazines at low collision energies use the sum of both transitions (m/z 116 ← 85, m/z 116 ← 86) to avoid errors that could be introduced by subtle changes in ES source conditions or collision voltages. This approach is adopted in an HPLC/MS/MS method used to monitor the degradation of N-nitrosopiperazine exposed to (i) broad-band UV light and (ii) heat typical of an amine regeneration (stripper) tower. The results reveal that aqueous N-nitrosopiperazine is thermally stable at 150°C but will degrade slowly upon exposure to UV light.

Tandem Mass Spectrometry Measurement of the Collision Products of Carbamate Anions Derived from CO2 Capture Sorbents: Paving the Way for Accurate Quantitation

The reaction between CO2 and aqueous amines to produce a charged carbamate product plays a crucial role in post-combustion capture chemistry when primary and secondary amines are used. In this paper, we report the low energy negative-ion CID results for several anionic carbamates derived from primary and secondary amines commonly used as post-combustion capture solvents. The study was performed using the modern equivalent of a triple quadrupole instrument equipped with a T-wave collision cell. Deuterium labeling of 2-aminoethanol (1,1,2,2,-d4-2-aminoethanol) and computations at the M06-2X/6-311++G(d,p) level were used to confirm the identity of the fragmentation products for 2-hydroxyethylcarbamate (derived from 2-aminoethanol), in particular the ions CN−, NCO− and facile neutral losses of CO2 and water; there is precedent for the latter in condensed phase isocyanate chemistry. The fragmentations of 2-hydroxyethylcarbamate were generalized for carbamate anions derived from other capture amines, including ethylenediamine, diethanolamine, and piperazine. We also report unequivocal evidence for the existence of carbamate anions derived from sterically hindered amines (Tris(2-hydroxymethyl)aminomethane and 2-methyl-2-aminopropanol). For the suite of carbamates investigated, diagnostic losses include the decarboxylation product (−CO2, 44 mass units), loss of 46 mass units and the fragments NCO− (m/z 42) and CN− (m/z 26). We also report low energy CID results for the dicarbamate dianion (−O2CNHC2H4NHCO2−) commonly encountered in CO2 capture solution utilizing ethylenediamine. Finally, we demonstrate a promising ion chromatography-MS based procedure for the separation and quantitation of aqueous anionic carbamates, which is based on the reported CID findings. The availability of accurate quantitation methods for ionic CO2 capture products could lead to dynamic operational tuning of CO2 capture-plants and, thus, cost-savings via real-time manipulation of solvent regeneration energies.