CO₂-Selective Absorbents in Air: Reverse Lipid Bilayer Structure Forming Neutral Carbamic Acid in Water without...

Emission gas and air contain not only CO₂ but also plentiful moisture, making it difficult to achieve selective CO₂ absorption without hydration. To generate absorbed CO₂ (wet CO₂) under heating, the need for external energy to release the absorbed water has been among the most serious problems in the fields of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) and direct air capture (DAC). We found that the introduction of the hydrophobic phenyl group into alkylamines of CO₂ absorbents improved the absorption selectivity between CO₂ and water. Furthermore, ortho-, meta-, and para-xylylenediamines (OXDA, MXDA, PXDA, respectively) absorbed only CO₂ in air without any hydration. Notably, MXDA·CO₂ was formed as an anhydrous carbamic acid even in water, presumably because it was covered with hydrophobic phenyl groups, which induces a reverse lipid bilayer structure. Dry CO₂ was obtained from heating MXDA·CO₂ at 103-120 °C, which was revealed to involve chemically the Grignard reaction to form the resulting carboxylic acids in high yields.