CO2 adsorption capacities of amine-functionalized microporous silica nanoparticles

Abstract

Efforts on CO2 capture have intensified as climate change compromises ecosystems and biodiversity. Therefore, it is crucial to develop different methods for CO2 sequestration to improve solid sorbent capabilities (NPs). To this end, the surface of 200-nm silica nanoparticles (SiO2NPs) was covalently anchored with aminated ligands, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), poly(amidoamine) dendrimers (PAMAM) and a short peptide comprising two lysine units, aiming for CO2 adsorption over a wide range of pressures. Our goal was to explore the influence of functional chemical groups (attached to the SiO2NPs) on CO2 sequestration. The observed results showed that at low and high CO2 gas pressure conditions, typical APTES functionalized SiO2Np surpassed the CO2 adsorption capacities of dendritic and peptide-based nanoparticles bearing amine-polymer functionalities, a remarkable effect that was investigated in this work. In addition, a convenient and facile method to decorate and quantify SiO2 nanoparticles with PAMAM and a short peptide is reported.