Development of inexpensive cellulosebased sorbents for carbon dioxide

Abstract

Aqueous amine solutions are benchmark solvents for CO2 capture and their operational drawbacks are well-known. In order to overcome these problems, the support of amines on solid materials appears as an option for CO2 capture. Cellulose is a versatile and low-cost material that can be used as a support. This study reports chemical modifcation of cellulose fbers extracted from rice husk with different amines and their potential for CO2 capture. The obtained compounds were characterized by different techniques. The CO2 sorption capacity was gravimetrically assessed in a Magnetic Suspension Balance. Quantum mechanical simulations and experimental results revealed that -NH- and -NH2represent major working sites of the employed compounds. The best result for CO 2 sorption was attained for the amine-modifed cellulose CL-D-400 with a sorption capacity of 409 μmol CO2/g at 1 bar and 1091 μmol CO2/g at 10 bar with amine concentrations as low as 2 × 10-6 mol/mg.