Graphene based materials for carbon capture

Abstract

The adverse effects of CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere is believed to be one of the causes of climate change. The seriousness of global warming is encouraging the development of technologies designed to reduce CO2 emissions. Adsorption in the broadest context can be considered to be a promising method to address this due to the energy saving potential and regenerability, compared to other techniques. In this study, graphite was first oxidized to graphene oxide (GO) with concentrated acid. This was followed by formation of the aminosilanes viz. 3- aminopropyl-triethoxysilane (APTES), tris(2-aminoethyl)amine (TRIS) and guanidine being functionalized onto the surface of graphene oxide (GO). A second series involving the ordered mesoporous materials (OMS) was prepared employing cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and P123 triblock copolymer, as the structure directing agents for the organization of polymerizing silica species. Following the self-assembly of OMS onto GO, the so formed GO-OMS compound was modified with polyethylenimine (PEI). Several characterization techniques such as X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FT-IR) spectroscopy, high resolution scanning microscopy (HRSEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and N2 physisoprion employing the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis to determine specific surface areas of porous solid materials were employed to study the structural, morphological and textural properties of the adsorbents.