Solvent Impregnated Polymers Loaded with Liquid‐Like Nanoparticle Organic Hybrid Materials for Enhanced Kinetics of Direct Air Capture and Point Source CO2 Capture

Abstract

AbstractHybrid CO2 capture materials, solvent impregnated polymers (SIPs), are developed based on a simple and scalable encapsulation technique to enhance CO2 capture kinetics of water‐lean solvents with high viscosity. Liquid‐like nanoparticle organic hybrid materials functionalized with polyethylenimine (NOHM‐I‐PEI) are incorporated into a shell material and UV‐cured to produce gas‐permeable solid sorbents with uniform NOHMs loading (NPEI‐SIPs). The CO2 capture kinetics of NPEI‐SIPs show a remarkable 50‐fold increase compared to that of neat NOHM‐I‐PEI due to a large increase in the NOHMs‐CO2 interfacial surface area provided by the SIP design. The optimum NOHM‐I‐PEI loading and sorption temperature are found to be ≈49 wt% and 50 °C, respectively, and NPEI‐SIPs exhibit great thermal stability over 20 CO2 capture/sorbent regeneration temperature swing cycles. The pseudoequilibrium CO2 loadings of NPEI‐SIPs under humid conditions are as high as 3.1 mmol CO2 g−1NPEI − SIPs for 15 vol% CO2 (postcombustion capture) and 1.7 mmol CO2 g−1NPEI − SIPs for 400 ppm (direct air capture). These findings suggest that NPEI‐SIPs can effectively capture CO2 from a wide range of CO2 concentrations including direct air capture while allowing the flexible design of CO2 capture reactors by combining the benefits of liquid solvents and solid sorbents.