Robust “Dry Amine” Solid CO2 Sorbent Synthesized by a Facile, Cost-effective and Environmental Friendly Pathway

Abstract The low cost and facile preparation of CO2 sorbents are extremely important for the practical CO2 capture application. In this study, we demonstrate a facile preparation of “dry amine” CO2 sorbents through a cost-effective and environmental friendly pathway. Commercially available mass-produced SiO2 nanoparticles were used as the support of “molecular basket” sorbents. Tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) was quickly (60s) loaded on the surface of SiO2 nanoparticles through high-speed mechanical mixing (22000 rpm) method. Compared with the conventional wet impregnation method, no solvent is required. Although this new pathway is simple, timesaving, cost-effective and environmental friendly, the prepared sorbents present excellent CO2 capture performance. The results show that with the increase of the TEPA loading, the CO2 adsorption amount of the TEPA/SiO2 sorbent increases first and then decreases. The 50TEPA/SiO2 sorbent shows much higher CO2 uptake (3.98 mmol/g) than SBA-15 based sorbent (2.45 mmol/g) prepared through the same method. And it also displays lower mass transfer resistance due to the small particle size and the open structure while 50TEPA/SBA-15 shows larger mass transfer resistance due to the channel structure. The results also show that 50TEPA/SiO2 has good reproducibility. Due to the low cost and facile preparation, the dry amine sorbents may also show the potential application for urgent use, such as SO2 leak or H2S leak.