Energy & Fuels, Vol.27, No.12, 7673-7680, 2013
Tetraethylenepentamine-Modified Silica Nanotubes for Low-Temperature CO2 Capture
The objective of this research is to develop a new type of CO2 sorbent. The sorbents were synthesized with mesoporous ethane-silica nanotubes (E-SNTs) and tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA). They were characterized by nitrogen adsorption/desorption, thermogravimetric analysis, and infrared spectroscopy. A fixed-bed reactor equipped with an online mass spectrometer was used to test the CO2 capture performances of the sorbents. It was found that 75 degrees C is the optimal CO2 adsorption temperature for amine-impregnated E-SNT sorbents. The highest CO2 sorption capacities achieved with E-SNTs with 50 wt % TEPA loading (E-SNTs-50%) without and with uses of water vapor are 3.58 and 4.74 mmol/g, respectively, under the conditions of a 10.0% CO2/N-2 mixture at 75 degrees C. Cyclic CO, adsorption-desorption test results indicate that the new composite sorbents are stable and regenerable.