Preparation and Testing of Polyethylenimine-Impregnated Silica Gel for CO₂ Capture

Abstract

This work studied the low-temperature sorption of carbon dioxide on impregnated silica gel. An impregnating agent was used polyethyleneimine. The content of the impregnating agent in the silica gel matrix was 33.4 wt.%. Material properties such as the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area, pore distribution, total pore volume, and thermal stability of the impregnated material were determined for the sample. During the measurement of the adsorption–desorption cycles, the loss of the impregnating agent in the material matrix was also determined. Due to the decrease in the content of polyethyleneimine, the sorption capacity of the adsorbent for CO2 also decreased. It was found that after the 20th adsorption–desorption cycle, the content of the impregnating agent in the adsorbent dropped by 3.15 wt.%, and, as a result, the adsorption capacity for CO2 dropped to almost half.

Keywords

• silica gel
• polyethylenimine
• carbon dioxide capture
• adsorption
• desorption