Ship-in-a-bottle synthesis of amine-functionalized ionic liquids in NaY zeolite for CO2 capture

CO2 capture on solid materials possesses significant advantages on the operation cost, process for large-scale CO2 capture and storage (CCS) that stimulates great interest in exploring high-performance solid CO2 adsorbents. A ship-in-a-bottle strategy was successfully developed to prepare the [APMIM]Br@NaY host-guest system in which an amine-functionalized ionic liquid (IL), 1-aminopropyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide ([APMIM]Br), was in-situ encapsulated in the NaY supercages. The genuine host-guest systems were thoroughly characterized and tested in CO2 capture from simulated flue gas. It was evidenced the encapsulated ILs are more stable than the bulk ILs. These host-guest systems exhibited superb overall CO2 capture capacity up to 4.94 mmol g(-1) and the chemically adsorbed CO2 achieved 1.85 mmol g(-1) depending on the [APMIM]Br loading amount. The chemisorbed CO2 can be desorbed rapidly by flushing with N2 gas at 50 °C. The optimized [APMIM]Br@NaY system remains its original CO2 capture capacity in multiple cycling tests under prolonged harsh adsorption-desorption conditions. The excellent physicochemical properties and the CO2 capture performance of the host-guest systems offer them great promise for the future practice in the industrial CO2 capture.