Surface Impregnation of Glycine to Activated Carbon Adsorbents for Dry Capture of Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

In order to improve the portability of basic absorbents monoethanolamine (MEA) and glycine (Gly), both were supported on microporous activated carbon (AC). Chemical modification by alkali-metal ion exchange (of Li, Na, K) was carried out on Gly-based absorbents. All supported absorbents were subjected to CO2 absorption capacity (pure CO2) and selectivity (indoor level) tests. Textural and chemical characterizations were carried out on test sorbents. All impregnation brought about significant reduction of specific surface area and microporosity of the adsorbent Depreciation in the textural properties was found to result to reduction in pure CO2 sorption. Contrarily, low-level CO2 removal capacity was enhanced as the absorbent dosage increases, resulting in supported 5 molar MEA in methanol solution. Adsorption capacities were improved from 0.016 and 0.8 in raw ACs to 1.065 mmol/g for MEA’s. Surface chemistry via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of the supported sorbents showed the presence of amine, pyrrole and quaternary-N. In reducing sequence of potency, pyridine, amine and pyrrolic-N were noticed to contribute significantly to CO2 selective adsorption. Furthermore, the adsorption isotherm study confirms the presence of various SNGs heterogeneously distributed on AC. The adsorption mechanism of the present AC adsorbents favored Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm at lower and higher CO2 concentrations respectively.

Keywords

• carbon dioxide
• mea
• glycine
• activated carbon
• pre-treatment
• adsorption
• selectivity