Effects of Bonding Types and Functional Groups on CO₂ Capture using Novel Multiphase Systems of Liquid-like Nanoparticle Organic Hybrid Materials

Abstract

Carbon dioxide, CO 2 , is one of the greenhouse gases and its atmospheric concentration has increased at an annual rate of about 2 ppm, and thus, the development of efficient CO 2 capture technologies is essential for the future of carbon-based energy. The most commonly employed approach for CO 2 capture is using amine-based solvents that react with gaseous CO 2 to form carbamates. 1À4 Among the amine-based solvents, monoethanolamine (MEA) is one of the most favored solvents for CO 2 capture due to its high CO 2 capture capacity and fast reaction kinetics. Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks that delay the implementation of MEA in large scale. MEA has high volatility, and therefore, its corrosive fume is a concern for the process design and operation. The concentration of MEA has to be limited to 15À30 wt % and this makes the CO 2 capture and the solvent regeneration processes complicated and costly. 5,6 In answer to these concerns associated with MEA, a number of innovative organic and inorganic materials including amine functionalized solid mesoporous sorbents 7À14 and liquid solvents (i.e., ionic liquids 15À18 and organic solvents such as aminoalkysilane 19,20 ) are being developed to capture CO 2 . Ionic liquids are particularly intriguing since they generally exhibit negligible vapor pressure even at elevated temperatures. Ionic liquids can be synthesized with task-specific functional groups (e.g., amine groups for CO 2 capture), and they can also possess interesting features such as reversible and phase changing behaviors. 21 The current drawbacks of ionic liquids as CO 2 capture media include their complex synthesis and purification steps, and high cost.Considering these limitations of CO 2 capture solvents, a new class of CO 2 capture medium named nanoparticle organic hybrid materials (NOHMs) has been formulated. Depending on the selection of organic materials, NOHMs can be synthesized in various forms: liquid-like solvent, solid sorbent or gel-like materials. Liquid-like NOHMs are particularly interesting since it can be a direct alternative to MEA solvent. By grafting polymer onto inorganic nanostructures, polymeric chains are anchored to improve the thermal stability, and the resulting NOHMs exhibit near zero vapor pressure at temperatures below their thermal decomposition temperatures. The NOHMs are relatively simple and easy to prepare, and they possess high degree of tunability since both the nanoparticle cores and the polymeric chains can be selected from a wide variety of commercially available materials. Therefore, NOHMs have a great potential for various industrial applications including CO 2 capture.Earlier versions of the liquid-like hybrid solvents developed at Cornell University were referred to as NIMs (nanoparticle-based ABSTRACT: Novel liquid-like nanoparticle organic hybrid materials (NOHMs) which possess unique features including negligible vapor pressure and a high degree of tunability were synthesized and their physical and chemical properties as well as CO 2 capture capacities w...

Hairy nanoparticle assemblies as one-component functional polymer nanocomposites: opportunities and challenges

“…By tethering the organic component of the capture fluid (such as a polyethyleneimine) to nanoparticles, it is possible to create a material with tunable viscosity that has improved thermal stability. [128] The absence of any untethered solvent gives these fluids zero vapor pressure, allowing them to be used without issues arising from evaporation. In addition, entropic effects in the structural ordering of the corona were found to improve uptake capacity relative to ungrafted polymers.…”

Probing the energetics of organic–nanoparticle interactions of ethanol on calcite

“…Such organicinorganic systems are also encountered in technological environments, particularly selective catalysis (6)(7)(8), enhanced oil recovery (9), self-assembly of colloidal NPs (10-13), and CO 2 capture and sequestration (14). Despite being well-documented qualitatively, the magnitudes of such interactions and their impact on the interface molecular configurations have barely been directly identified.…”

Thermal stability, swelling behavior and CO2 absorption properties of Nanoscale Ionic Materials (NIMs)

“…This was because CO 2 solubility was mostly affected by the total amount of ether groups in the solvent, forming Lewis acid-base interactions with CO 2 . 14,44,45 Since the CO 2 absorption capacity was normalized for a given mass of mPEGs, similar total amounts of ether groups were present regardless the length of the polymer. The CO 2 capture capacities of NIMs were slightly lower than those of mPEGs but the difference was not signicant.…”

“…14,15 In addition, the temperature and/or the adsorption of molecules could modify the conformation of the polymer chains in the canopy, thereby causing changes in the bulk properties of NIMs such as the swelling. The measurement of swelling could therefore be used as a tool to study how NIMs responded to heating and to the adsorption of CO 2 molecules.…”