Understanding carbon capture in new green adsorbents

We have developed green chemistry for synthesising porous materials; the new method is rapid, controlled, mild and do not require non-aqueous solvents. We have found that these green adsorbents can be used for carbon capture. Furthermore, this synthesis allows material properties to be explicitly tailored. Our results on CO2 capture and storage demonstrate that the new materials synthesised have a marked effect on adsorption uptakes at all pressures of CO2. Commercially available materials were tested and compared with those synthesised. Indeed, when compared with commercial materials the materials developed in this research had greater capacities. Significant enhancement in CO2 storage capacity at typical concentrations present in process streams was also found. These materials compete with the best performing materials reported in the literature e.g. chemically impregnated materials and physically impregnated silica.