Significant CO2 Adsorption Ability of Nanoscale BaTiO3 Ceramics Fabricated by Carbon-Template-Solvothermal Reactions

Separation of CO2 using adsorption and membrane separations can be performed under moderate conditions for carbon capture and release processes. Although porous media work well for this purpose, these novel materials must be fabricated with high CO2 separation ability. We propose the use of nanoscale BaTiO3 crystals as separators for CO2 adsorption. Although BaTiO3 is a conventional ceramic, it exhibits high dielectric properties and shows potential for a strong interaction with the quadrupole moment of CO2. However, this high adsorption potential is reduced by the extremely small surface area of BaTiO3. Here, we fabricated nanoscale BaTiO3 crystals with high surface area and nanopores, and demonstrated their excellent CO2 adsorption performance with large adsorption hysteresis. The CO2 adsorbed in the nanoscale BaTiO3 crystals could be perfectly released under vacuum conditions. The structure of adsorbed CO2 was similar to CO2 solid at 1 GPa. The unique adsorption properties of CO2 in these nanoscale BaTiO3 crystals are of interest for the development of materials with high CO2 adsorption ability.