Performance of amine-multilayered solid sorbents for CO2 removal: Effect of fabrication variables

Abstract The emission of fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to the atmosphere is implicated as the predominant cause of global climate change; therefore, advanced CO 2 capture technologies are of the utmost importance. In this study, innovative amine-multilayered sorbents were fabricated using layer-by-layer (LbL) nanoassembly technology via alternate deposition of a CO 2 -adsorbing amine polymer (e.g. polyethylenimine or PEI) and an oppositely-charged polymer (e.g. polystyrene sulfonate or PSS). We found that the developed sorbents could be used for CO 2 capture and that LbL nanoassembly allows us to engineer their CO 2 capture performance through the fabrication variables (e.g. deposition polymers, deposition media, and number of bilayers). PEI/PSS was found to be the best polymer combination for developing sorbents with relatively high CO 2 capture capacity. The amine-multilayered solid sorbents possessed fine microstructures and may have similar polymer deposition within and on the surface of solid sorbents. These amine-multilayered sorbents had much faster CO 2 desorption rates compared to sorbents prepared using the current PEI-impregnation approach. Such fast CO 2 desorption could make sorbents a good option for CO 2 removal from power plants and even the atmosphere.