Hybrid CO 2 capture materials, solvent impregnated polymers (SIPs), are developed based on a simple and scalable encapsulation technique to enhance CO 2 capture kinetics of water-lean solvents with high viscosity. Liquid-like nanoparticle organic hybrid materials functionalized with polyethylenimine (NOHM-I-PEI) are incorporated into a shell material and UV-cured to produce gas-permeable solid sorbents with uniform NOHMs loading (NPEI-SIPs). The CO 2 capture kinetics of NPEI-SIPs show a remarkable 50-fold increase compared to that of neat NOHM-I-PEI due to a large increase in the NOHMs-CO 2 interfacial surface area provided by the SIP design. The optimum NOHM-I-PEI loading and sorption temperature are found to be ≈49 wt% and 50 °C, respectively, and NPEI-SIPs exhibit great thermal stability over 20 CO 2 capture/sorbent regeneration temperature swing cycles. The pseudoequilibrium CO 2 loadings of NPEI-SIPs under humid conditions are as high as 3.1 mmol CO 2 g −1 NPEI − SIPs for 15 vol% CO 2 (postcombustion capture) and 1.7 mmol CO 2 g −1 NPEI − SIPs for 400 ppm (direct air capture). These findings suggest that NPEI-SIPs can effectively capture CO 2 from a wide range of CO 2 concentrations including direct air capture while allowing the flexible design of CO 2 capture reactors by combining the benefits of liquid solvents and solid sorbents.
An
emerging area of sustainable energy and environmental research
is focused on the development of novel electrolytes that can increase
the solubility of target species and improve subsequent reaction performance.
Electrolytes with chemical and structural tunability have allowed
for significant advancements in flow batteries and CO2 conversion
integrated with CO2 capture. Liquid-like nanoparticle organic
hybrid materials (NOHMs) are nanoscale fluids that are composed of
inorganic nanocores and an ionically tethered polymeric canopy. NOHMs
have been shown to exhibit enhanced conductivity making them promising
for electrolyte applications, though they are often challenged by
high viscosity in the neat state. In this study, a series of binary
mixtures of NOHM-I-HPE with five different secondary fluids, water,
chloroform, toluene, acetonitrile, and ethyl acetate, were prepared
to reduce the fluid viscosity and investigate the effects of secondary
fluid properties (e.g., hydrogen bonding ability, polarity, and molar
volume) on their transport behaviors, including viscosity and diffusivity.
Our results revealed that the molecular ratio of secondary fluid to
the ether groups of Jeffamine M2070 (λSF) was able
to describe the effect that secondary fluid has on transport properties.
Our findings also suggest that in solution, the Jeffamine M2070 molecules
exist in different nanoscale environments, where some are more strongly
associated with the nanoparticle surface than others, and the conformation
of the polymer canopy was dependent on the secondary fluid. This understanding
of the polymer conformation in NOHMs can allow for the better design
of an electrolyte capable of capturing and releasing small gaseous
or ionic species.
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