Intrinsic Thermal Desorption in a 3D Printed Multifunctional Composite CO₂ Sorbent with Embedded Heating Capability

Abstract

Efficient removal of CO2 from enclosed environments is a significant challenge, particularly in human space flight where strict restrictions on mass and volume are present. To address this issue, this study describes the use of a multimaterial, layer-by-layer, additive manufacturing technique to directly print a structured multifunctional composite for CO2 sorption with embedded, intrinsic, heating capability to facilitate thermal desorption, removing the need for an external heat source from the system. This multifunctional composite is coprinted from an ink formulation based on zeolite 13X, and an electrically conductive sorbent ink formulation, which includes metal particles blended with the zeolite. The composites are characterized using analytical and imaging tools and then tested for CO2 adsorption/desorption. The resistivity of the conductive sorbent is <2 mΩ m, providing a temperature increase up to 200 °C under 7 V applied bias, which is sufficient to trigger CO2 desorption. The CO2 adsorption capability of the conductive zeolite ink appears to be unaffected by the presence of the conductive particles, meaning a large fraction of the total mass of the structured composite device is functional.

Recent Advances in 3D Printing of Structured Materials for Adsorption and Catalysis Applications

“…Manufacturing method for multifunctional adsorbent conductor filament and corresponding thermal properties under different applied voltages. Reproduced with permission from ref . Copyright 2019 American Chemical Society.…”

“…Moreover, the authors also demonstrated that, by 3D printing materials with different functionalities, a composite which retains both materials' properties can be produced. In a similar study, Thompson et al 125 3D-printed two functional inks, where ink one contained zeolite 13X adsorbents and ink two contained conductive silver nanoparticles, to form adsorptive filaments that could be regenerated via electric swing. This process, which is shown in Figure 19, can be considered of high importance as it demonstrated 3D printing's ability to generate a multifunctional material by depositing two inks into a single scaffold.…”

Carbon Capture From Flue Gas and the Atmosphere: A Perspective

“…Both the diameter of the parallel channels and the density per crosssectional area of monoliths are controllable. Most recently, three-dimensional (3D) printing or additive manufacturing technique has gained worldwide attention and has been applied for fabrication of 3D-printed monoliths including zeolites (e.g., 5A and 13X) and MOFs (MOF-74-Ni and UTSA-16-Co (Thakkar et al, 2016;Thakkar et al, 2017a;Thakkar et al, 2017b;Thakkar et al, 2018;Nguyen et al, 2019;Regufe et al, 2019;Thompson et al, 2019). Compared FIGURE 7 | CO 2 capacity reported in the literature with different support at different PEI loading and temperature for CO 2 capture from (A) pure CO 2 and (B) from simulated air with about 400 ppm CO 2 along with the insets showing the amine efficiency (A.E., mol-CO 2 /mol-N).…”

Review on Additive Manufacturing of Catalysts and Sorbents and the Potential for Process Intensification

“…One successful application of this concept was already reported in Table 2. In this study, Thompson et al (2019) used DIW with dual extruders to produce a sorbent structure with integrated heating. The key to the success of this example is the similarity of the two inks, as the conductive ink (used for resistive heating) was produced by adding silver microflakes to the sorbent formulation.…”