Epoxy based oxygen enriched porous carbons for CO2 capture

Abstract

Oxygen enriched carbon adsorbents were successfully synthesized for the first time from template zeolite and epoxy resin as precursor using a nanocasting technique. Carbonization and CO2 activation were performed at various temperatures (500–800°C) to prepare different carbon structure adsorbents. Several characterization techniques were used to characterize the textural structure, oxygen content and surface functional groups of the adsorbents. The carbon adsorbents show high oxygen content (47.51%), highest surface area (SBET=686.37m2g−1) and pore volume (0.60cm3g−1), respectively. The materials were evaluated thermogravimetrically at different adsorption temperatures (30–100°C) and CO2 concentrations (6–100%). Adsorbent prepared at 700°C exhibited highest CO2 uptake of 0.91mmolg−1 due to high surface basicity. Further, regeneration studies of adsorbent exhibited easy regenerability and stability over four multiple adsorptions-desorption cycles. Kinetic models for CO2 adsorption at various CO2 concentrations and temperatures were studied and it was found that the fractional order provided best fitting for the adsorption behavior with an error of less than 3%. The experimental data for CO2 adsorption were analyzed using different isothermal models and found that the Freundlich isothermal model presented perfect fit among all isotherm models depicting heterogeneous adsorbent surface. The isosteric heat of adsorption was estimated to be 11.75kJmol−1, indicating physiosorption process. Overall, the above results suggested that the synthesized adsorbent using nanocasting technique provides a feasible way for CO2 capture from point source due to their environmentally benign nature, low cost and stable adsorption capacity.