Effect of amine head group imparted to poly (glycidyl methacrylate) grafted fibrous adsorbent for CO2 adsorption

Abstract

The demand to develop adsorbents for CO2 capture with high performance continued to grow extensively. Adsorbents with covalently bonded amine groups based on fibrous substrate modified by radiation-induced grafting copolymerization (RIGC) of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and amination treatment have emerged recently. In this study, GMA was grafted onto a polyethylene/polypropylene (PE/PP) fibrous sheet and the grafted intermediate was used to incorporate two different amine-containing agents, namely polyethyleneimine (PEI) and ethylenediamine (EDA) for CO2 adsorption. The chemical structural and morphological changes in the two aminated adsorbents were evaluated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. A low and equal amination level of 20% was achieved in PEI-containing and EDA-containing adsorbents. The CO2 adsorption from a binary mixture of CO2/N2 (40:60 v/v) was not satisfactory despite a 30% higher adsorption capacity (50.44 mg/g) demonstrated by EDA-containing adsorbent compared to 34.51 mg/g for PEI-containing counterpart at 30 bar and at room temperature. More work is needed to elevate the CO2 adsorption capacity levels in such adsorbents by increasing the amination level via optimization of reaction parameters.