Glutamine functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles for high-performance carbon dioxide absorption

Abstract

Mitigating carbon dioxide (CO2) emission via novel methods is crucial due to the harmful effects of greenhouse gases (GHGs) on global climate change. In this research, CO2 absorption was carried out using functionalized Iron Oxide (Fe2O3) nanofluid. Glutamine as a powerful chemical absorbent of CO2 was functionalized on Fe2O3 nanoparticles (NPs) to improve CO2 capture of water-based Fe2O3 nanofluid. To demonstrate the capability of prepared nanofluids on CO2 absorption, a high-pressure batch setup was utilized to run absorption experiments. Subsequently, the impacts of pressure, NPs concentration, functionalization, and NPs dispersibility on CO2 capture were evaluated. The experimental results explicitly demonstrated that water/water-based nanofluids result in higher CO2 absorption rates at higher pressures (40 bar). Moreover, the experimental data confirmed that Fe2O3@glutamine nanofluid improves CO2 absorption significantly higher than water and Fe2O3 nanofluid. Ultimately, Fe2O3@glutamine nanofluid enhanced CO2 capture up to 33.93 and 13.22% compared to water and Fe2O3 nanofluid at the best operational conditions (40 bar and optimal NPs concentrations). Furthermore, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and zeta potential analysis were conducted to elucidate the synthesized NPs characteristics.