Controllable Construction of Amino-Functionalized Dynamic Covalent Porous Polymers for High-Efficiency CO₂ Capture from Flue Gas

Abstract

The design of high-efficiency CO2 adsorbents with low cost, high capacity, and easy desorption is of high significance for reducing carbon emissions, which yet remains a great challenge. This work proposes a facile construction strategy of amino-functional dynamic covalent materials for effective CO2 capture from flue gas. Upon the dynamic imine assembly of N-site rich motif and aldehyde-based spacers, nanospheres and hollow nanotubes with spongy pores were constructed spontaneously at room temperature. A commercial amino-functional molecule tetraethylenepentamine could be facilely introduced into the dynamic covalent materials by virtue of the dynamic nature of imine assembly, thus inducing a high CO2 capacity (1.27 mmol·g−1) from simulated flue gas at 75 °C. This dynamic imine assembly strategy endowed the dynamic covalent materials with facile preparation, low cost, excellent CO2 capacity, and outstanding cyclic stability, providing a mild and controllable approach for the development of competitive CO2 adsorbents.

Keywords

• CO₂ capture
• dynamic covalent polymer
• imine exchange
• amino functionalization