Water, Air and Environment

Project Description

Development ofCarbon dioxide (CO2) capture techniques is focused globally to decelerate global warming. Increase in concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) most importantly CO2 in the atmosphere is identified as a main cause of global warming. The main idea of this project was to develop sorbents for carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an evolving technology that has the potential to reduce this GHGs emission. In this regard, so far nano-hollow structured nanomaterials and nanocomposites were developed and tested as adsorbents for CO2 capture and utilization. This report includes development of CO2 adsorbents based on a polymer- and a mineral-based materials that is chitosan and zeolite, respectively modified with monoethanolamine (MEA). Chitosan beads were prepared by insolubilisation in NaOH solution and doped in different weight percent with single-walled carbon nanotubes modified with MEA. Hollow zeolites were prepared by hydrothermal synthesis and impregnated with MEA in different weight percent. Various physicochemical techniques were used such as X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopic (FTIR) to confirm that the objective of successful formation of the designed adsorbents was achieved. Both the sorbents were synthesized, modified, and studied for CO2 adsorption from a simulated flue gas mixture comprising nitrogen and CO2 using a fixed-bed flow reactor. The reactor and the assembly developed was also the part of this project which was successfully achieved. Observations showed that the CO2 adsorption capacity enhanced with amine loading for both the adsorbents. The adsorbents were found very active and promising, and the maximum adsorption of 19 mg/g was achieved for modified chitosan.  Compared to hollow zeolites, the modified chitosan beads showed better adsorption. The stability of the adsorbents was tested by recycling the same material for three adsorption-desorption cycles and no significant change in CO2 adsorption capabilities was noticed. These results will help the scientific community to further study the possibility of using or modifying these adsorbents to get even better results. s.

Members

  • Dr. Romana  Khan