[EMmim][NTf2 ]-a Novel Ionic Liquid (IL) in Catalytic CO2 Capture and ILs' Applications.

Ionic liquids (ILs) have been used for carbon dioxide (CO2 ) capture, however, which have never been used as catalysts to accelerate CO2 capture. The record is broken by a uniquely designed IL, [EMmim][NTf2 ]. The IL can universally catalyze both CO2 sorption and desorption of all the chemisorption-based technologies. As demonstrated in monoethanolamine (MEA) based CO2 capture, even with the addition of only 2000 ppm IL catalyst, the rate of CO2 desorption-the key to reducing the overall CO2 capture energy consumption or breaking the bottleneck of the state-of-the-art technologies and Paris Agreement implementation-can be increased by 791% at 85 °C, which makes use of low-temperature waste heat and avoids secondary pollution during CO2 capture feasible. Furthermore, the catalytic CO2 capture mechanism is experimentally and theoretically revealed.

TiO(OH)2 - highly effective catalysts for optimizing CO2 desorption kinetics reducing CO2 capture cost: A new pathway.

The objective is to find a new pathway for significant reduction in CO2 capture energy consumption. Specifically, nanoporous TiO(OH)2 was used to realize the objective, which was desired as a catalyst to significantly accelerate the decomposition of aqueous NaHCO3, essentially CO2 desorption - the key step of Na2CO3/NaHCO3 based CO2 capture technologies from overall CO2 energy consumption perspective. Effects of several important factors on TiO(OH)2-catalyzed NaHCO3 decomposition were investigated. The quantity of CO2 generated from 0.238 mol/L NaHCO3 at 65 °C with catalyst is ~800% of that generated without the presence of catalyst. When a 12 W vacuum pump was used for carrying the generated CO2 out of reactor, the total amount of CO2 released was improved by ~2,500% under the given experimental conditions. No significant decrease in the catalytic effect of TiO(OH)2 was observed after five cyclic CO2 activated tests. In addition, characterizations with in-situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravity analysis and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller of TiO(OH)2 indicate that TiO(OH)2 is quite stable. The discovery in this research could inspire scientists' interests in starting to focus on a new pathway instead of making huge effort or investment in designing high-capacity but expensive CO2 sorbent for developing practical or cost-effective CO2 technologies.

Borate-catalyzed carbon dioxide hydration via the carbonic anhydrase mechanism.

The hydration of CO(2) plays a critical role in carbon capture and geoengineering technologies currently under development to mitigate anthropogenic global warming and in environmental processes such as ocean acidification. Here we reveal that borate catalyzes the conversion of CO(2) to HCO(3)(-) via the same fundamental mechanism as the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which is responsible for CO(2) hydration in the human body. In this mechanism the tetrahydroxyborate ion, B(OH)(4)(-), is the active form of boron that undergoes direct reaction with CO(2). In addition to being able to accelerate CO(2) hydration in alkaline solvents used for carbon capture, we hypothesize that this mechanism controls CO(2) uptake by certain saline bodies of water, such as Mono Lake (California), where previously inexplicable influx rates of inorganic carbon have created unique chemistry. The new understanding of CO(2) hydration provided here should lead to improved models for the carbon cycle in highly saline bodies of water and to advances in carbon capture and geoengineering technology.