Study of CO2 adsorption on carbon aerogel fibers prepared by electrospinning

Abstract

The exacerbation of climate change has made the development of alternative and sustainable technologies to achieve carbon neutrality an urgent matter. The intricate preparation and arduous recovery of conventionally prepared CO2 solid adsorbents make their large-scale application a significant challenge, which significantly limits the application of the adsorbent. To address this problem, we have innovatively adopted a novel strategy of electrospinning and one-step carbonization to fabricate microporous carbon aerogel fibers (CAFs) as solid adsorbents for CO2. This method offers the advantages of a simple process, cost-effectiveness, and stable performance. The designed CAFs possess a high specific surface area (1188.628 m2/g), an appropriate distribution of pore size (0.54–0.64 nm), and about 15 at% oxygen-containing functional groups without activation or doping. At 0 °C, the CAFs-800 (800 is the carbonization temperature) exhibit a maximum capture capacity of 4.25 mmol/g, and after 5 times cycles, the adsorption capacity remains above 97%; at 25 °C, the maximum capture capacity reaches 3.57 mmol/g of CAFs-800, surpassing similar materials by more than 20%, demonstrating excellent adsorption capacity and stability towards CO2. These results indicate that the CAFs hold great promise for CO2 capture and storage with exceptional advantages.