Carbon dioxide adsorption based on porous materials

Abstract

Global warming due to the high concentration of anthropogenic CO₂ in the atmosphere is considered one of the world's leading challenges in the 21^st century as it leads to severe consequences such as climate change, extreme weather events, ocean warming, sea-level rise, declining Arctic sea ice, and the acidification of oceans. This encouraged advancing technologies that sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or capture those emitted before entering the carbon cycle. Recently, CO₂ capture, utilizing porous materials was established as a very favorable route, which has drawn extreme interest from scientists and engineers due to their advantages over the absorption approach. In this review, we summarize developments in porous adsorbents for CO₂ capture with emphasis on recent studies. Highly efficient porous adsorption materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), zeolites, mesoporous silica, clay, porous carbons, porous organic polymers (POP), and metal oxides (MO) are discussed. Besides, advanced strategies employed to increase the performance of CO₂ adsorption capacity to overcome their drawbacks have been discoursed.

Fig. 1. (a) Global atmospheric CO₂ concentrations over 800 000 years (data taken from ref. 8), (b) global CO₂ emissions over a period by fuel type (Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, 2017 (ref. 8)) (Creative Commons BY license).

Fig. 2. Potential porous solid adsorbents and the relevant relationships between capacity and temperature (data from ref. 20).

Fig. 3. An illustration of a Zn₄O(–COO)₆ unit (left) is linked with organic linkers (middle) to shape different types of metal–organic frameworks (right).

Fig. 4. Demonstration of the breathing effect of flexible MOF structure containing LP with almost rectangular pores, and NP with trapezoidal pores.

Fig. 5. Graphical illustration for the framework construction of a robust isoreticular metal triazolate (Reproduced with permission from ref. Copyright© 2020, American Chemical Society).

Fig. 6. Optimized geometries of the different CO₂@ZIFs complexes where the CO₂ molecule is trapped in the cavity center of each ZIF structure (reproduced with permission from ref. . Copyright© 2017, American Chemical Society).

Fig. 7. (i) The literature on different MOF-based adsorbents for CO₂ uptake at different temperatures (a) 195 K, (b) 273 K, (c) 298 K for 1 bar pressure (for some adsorbents CO₂ uptake units are converted from the originally reported ones). (ii) Demonstrates a series of ZIFs along with their surface area towards CO₂ uptake at 273 K.

Fig. 8. Some of the frameworks of zeolite structures (KFI, RHO, FAU, MFI, CHA, and LTA-type structures).

Fig. 9. CO₂ adsorption capacities of zeolite-based adsorbents (for some adsorbents CO₂ uptake units are converted from the originally reported ones).

Fig. 10. Illustration of amine grafting on mesoporous silica, in which R-denotes an aliphatic carbon chain with or without further secondary amine (reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2020, Elsevier).

Fig. 11. (i) (a) CO₂ uptake of different mesoporous silica adsorbents after the addition of 50 wt% PEI content and (b). The difference of CO₂ adsorption–desorption performance between MCM-41-PEI 50, KIT-6-PEI 50, and PEI, inset: assessment of CO₂ adsorption kinetics of KIT-6-PEI 50 (1) and pure PEI (2). (i) (b) Reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2007, Elsevier, (ii) CO₂ uptake versus temperature for PME-PEI (55) after 30 min, and 180 min, PMC-PEI (55) after 30 min, and 180 min of exposure to pure CO₂ (reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2011, ACS publications), (iii) MSiNTs/PEI (MP) nanocomposite preparation and its CO₂ uptake performance (reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2016, ACS publications).

Fig. 12. Tetrahedral and octahedral sheets of the phyllosilicates (reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2018, Wiley Online Library).

Fig. 13. CO₂ capture mechanisms of (a) humid, and (b) dry conditions (reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2014, Elsevier).

Fig. 14. The CO₂ adsorption capacity of amine-functionalized PCH, via grafting APTES and via impregnation with PEI or TEPA [data from ref. 138].

Fig. 15. Different structures and allotropes of carbon (reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2006, Elsevier).

Fig. 16. Illustration of the synthesis of activated polypyrrole-derived carbon spheres (ACS-4-6-2) (reproduced by permission from ref. Copyright 2018, Elsevier).

Fig. 17. The literature of different porous carbon-based adsorbents for CO₂ capture at different temperatures (273 K, 298 K) for 1 bar pressure w.r.t. surface area (some have been converted to these units from the originally reported units).

Fig. 18. Chemical structures of diversified porous materials.

Fig. 19. Summary of different porous POPs for CO₂ capture at different temperatures (273 K, 298 K) for 1 bar pressure w.r.t. surface area (some have been converted to these units from the originally reported units).

Fig. 20. Theoretical uptake of carbon dioxide for various ceramic adsorbents (data from ref. 216).