Electrospinning-based nanofiber architectures for outstanding CO2 capture

Abstract

The worsening climate change has made the development of alternative and sustainable technologies to achieve carbon neutrality a pressing issue. Numerous strategies for carbon dioxide (CO2) capture/conversion and relevant material preparation have been dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, a reconfigurable process to secure optimal procedures and materials is urgently required to reduce CO2 emissions in a convenient, rapidly implementable manner. On this account, this study attempted to construct polyethylenimine (PEI)/cerium oxide (CeO2)/activated carbon nanofibers (ACNFs) as a reliable CO2 adsorbent from an electrospinning (ES)-based architecting as a modular process to accelerate their field applications because adsorption has outstanding advantages for CO2 capture, such as process simplicity, wide operational range, low cost, and stable performance. By selecting ES with commercially available materials (PEI (providing CO2 chemisorption), cerium nitrate hexahydrate (CO2 selectivity), and polyacrylonitrile (base of porous nanofibers)), a composite nanofibrous architecture (PEI/CeO2/ACNFs) with outstanding CO2 capture can be achieved by simple process manipulation (manipulating the electrical polarity applied to the nozzle and concentration of the cerium nitrate for the ES). This study may provide a reconfigurable manufacture to ensure a reliable adsorbent for CO2 capture and base materials for CO2 conversion from electro- and photocatalysis.