The present research work provides a quantitative evaluation of the CO₂ absorption performance of potassium prolinate by setting a reliable and cost-effective approach for solvent screening, based on both experimental activities and data analysis. Potassium prolinate has been chosen as a promising green solvent to be tested at two different concentrations (30% and 43.38% w/w ProK aqueous solutions).

The applied methodology involves direct comparison of the alternative solvent against a reference case, such as 30% w/w MEA solution. The test has been carried out on a bench-scale facility composed of a glass column with internal random packing located at Sotacarbo Research Center (Sardinia); the facility has been run in open and closed cycle mode, assessing the performance in terms of CO₂ removal from NGCC synthetic flue gases (e.g.: 4% mol/mol CO₂ concentration).

The outcome of this work provides new information based on experimental data on removal, maximum achievable loading, loading increment rate and solvent capacity, and it constitutes a novel contribution to the literature. Moreover, it represents a tangible effort in delivering an insight on non-precipitating amino acid viability for flue gas decarbonization in CCS technologies.